Don’t just call on someone to "follow up" with them.
Telling people are you are just calling to "follow up" or "touch base" is lame.
It’s lazy selling
Now I am not totally against being lazy when it works. But usually lazy selling doesn’t work.
Just as I discussed yesterday that all deadlines must have a reason for their existence, each contact with your prospects must have a good reason for taking place.
Each contact with your prospects and customers must have a good business reason for the call.
And you should tell them that reason for your call.
Giving someone The Reason is the antidote for the lameness of "I am just touching base with you".
Giving your business reason for a call is as simple as…
I am calling to see if you met with your CFO and discussed fixing the problem in your business that you have been talking with me about.
…and of course you would customize the above to actually restate the problem which you uncovered in a previous sales call.
So don’t lame out. Give a reason, especially when leaving voicemails for people.
The "I am just touching base" voicemail message makes you sound like such a cheesy salesman.
So stop "touching base" and "just following up" and start using real reasons when you communicate with your prospects.
Oh, and speaking of reasons for contacting your prospects, the reason for my frequent blog posts is to help you get more sales. And I just happen to have a few sales training courses designed to do just that. 
Check ’em out while you are here.
Sell with Pride
Shameless Shamus
