Run the seven-day follow-up cadence

1. Why more attempts

The more often you reach out to leads, the more of them turn up, offered as experience rather than as a rule. Enough volume takes luck out of it.

It makes sense, because most attempts to reach somebody fail. You may have called or messaged at a bad moment. They might have meant to reply and then forgotten. Maybe they missed it among everything else coming at them. Or, with older leads, maybe they did not need what you sell then and do now, and you reminded them.

So reaching out again makes business sense, and it makes ethical sense too: somebody who opted in asked to be contacted, so contact them. The problem is that nearly half of salespeople give up after the first attempt. The outside figures behind that are on SOP 85 section 3.

What volume means. The number of times you reach out to a lead before giving up. The goal is more attempts, which bring more replies, then more bookings, then more shows. Volume comes in three parts:

1. Getting the appointment booked: sections 2 and 3.
2. Reminding them to turn up: sections 4 and 5.
3. Booking their next appointment while they are at the current one: section 6.

2. The first week of attempts

The steps run in this order. Step 1 is the five-minute call on SOP 90, and steps 2 to 4 are laid out, with the reasons for each, on SOP 91 — Run the first-contact channel stack and the double dial.

#	When	What you do
1	Within 5 minutes of the opt-in	Call
2	If you get nothing	Call again straight away: the double dial
3	If there is still nothing	Leave a voicemail
4	Straight after the voicemail	Send a text
5	Later the same day	Double dial and text two more times, leaving a few hours between attempts
6	The next two days	Call twice a day, once earlier and once later; text after the second call each day
7	The next four days	Call and text once a day
8	After the first week	Move the lead to long-term nurture

Step 7 and the weekend. If the first attempts fall early in the week, the four days of step 7 reach the people who reply more often at weekends. If they fall late in the week, the busier days will probably reach them anyway.

Step 8. Long-term nurture is free value with soft calls to action, meant to get the lead talking again. Once they are, start from the top of this table. The details of long-term nurture are not on this page.

Why the week is front-loaded. The more days that pass, the less likely a lead is to book, so the attempts are packed into the first days. Steps 6 and 7 are flexible: run them for more days or fewer. The table is a preference, not a rule. Follow the laws in your area on calling and texting, from the double dial at step 2 onward.

The same steps, shorter. Double dial and text three times on the first day; twice on the second day and the day after; then once a day for 1 to 4 days after that, where step 7 at full length runs four. In all, the floor is seven or more attempts, in more than one way. The same lever is also illustrated as five or more attempts against an average of 1.3; see SOP 85, section 3.

3. Get a dialer

For the business's sake, get a phone dialer. It will make the team 2 to 3 times more efficient, easily. It brings up the leads most worth calling on its own, it keeps to the cadence, and it gets the sales team off spreadsheets and sticky notes, so their full attention goes on working leads. This page gives no figure for how the 2 to 3 times was measured.

4. Automated reminders

Once somebody is booked, whether you booked them or they booked themselves, send automated reminders, and make it clear that they are automated. People do not mind reminders; they do mind being deceived. If you are following the speed rules on SOP 90 and SOP 86, you do not need to send that many.

The schedule looks something like this:

1. Immediately: an automatic confirmation of the date and time, the number you will call from, and who they are meeting.
2. 24 hours before.
3. 12 hours before.
4. 3 hours before.

Tips:

• Use the standard reminders that come with your software, and tell leads you have automated them.
• Put the area code you will call from in the reminder. It will double the rate at which leads pick up.
• Use the lead's own time zone.

That is what is done, and it works well; do not overcomplicate it. Each of the 24, 12 and 3-hour reminders carries the name, date, time and the number or area code you will call from.

5. Manual reminders

On top of the automated ones, send three messages by hand from a real phone, on a separate number.

1. The night before, around 6 pm. Put it on the sales team's end-of-day checklist to message the next day's appointments.
2. The morning of, around 8 am.
3. 60 minutes before the meeting.

Follow the laws in your local area on these as well.

Flag: the manual schedule. SOP 149, section 5 sends them 24 hours out in the morning and one hour prior. Following this page, the first personal reminder lands the evening before, around 6 pm; following SOP 149, a full day out. This page does not settle which reading is right.

How to write them:

1. Send several short messages in a row, the way people actually text, not one block.
2. Open with a probing question built on what you already know about them.
3. When they answer, compliment them, if you can.
4. Then ask the next question. This is where you can pull the appointment forward if you have not already: you have an opening today at 4 if they are free later, and if not, no worries.

Once they reply, keep nurturing and keep answering fast. The reply pattern underneath this, acknowledge, compliment, ask, is SOP 14 — Reply with acknowledge, compliment, ask, and pulling an appointment forward is SOP 86 section 4.

6. Book the next meeting from this one

The case. An insurance company, bought over a year earlier, had one big constraint: prospects dropped off between the first call and the second. Between those calls the reps built and sent the plans each prospect qualified for: a lot of work for a low return. One change was made to how leads were nurtured, a practice picked up from a friend.

The practice. Never end a call with "we'll circle back" or "I'll send over some times". You are both there, right now. Open the calendar and pick a time. If you can't book the next appointment with them there and then, you certainly will not once they are in limbo and you are behind them. The company runs it as a way of life. A prospect who is evasive about the next call is raising an objection; handle it, and sales follow.

Why it works. People are more likely to turn up to an appointment that is booked, and you have the best chance of booking it with them live. So the next appointment is booked during the current one. After the change, show rates on the second call rose sharply and the company's sales rose.

The rule in one line. Once a lead turns up, if they do not close, do not wait: book their next appointment on the spot, so nobody falls through the cracks.

7. What this page does not decide for you

• How many days steps 6 and 7 run for you. They are flexible; the table is one preference.
• How long long-term nurture runs, and what it holds beyond free value with soft calls to action. Not established on this page.
• What the voicemail and the texts say. This page gives no script for them.
• How the dialer and area-code figures were measured. This page gives no figure for either method.
• What to do when a lead never answers in the first week, beyond moving them to long-term nurture.

8. The checklist

Question	The answer
Why more attempts	The more times you reach out, the more likely leads reply, book and turn up; most attempts fail, and leads who opted in asked to be contacted
How many give up after one	Nearly half of salespeople
The parts of volume	Booking, reminding, booking the next one
First week, in order	Call within 5 minutes; call again; voicemail; text; two more rounds that day; twice a day for two days; once a day for four days; then long-term nurture
Why front-load	The more days pass, the less likely a lead is to book
Automated reminders	Immediately, 24 hours, 12 hours and 3 hours before; say they are automated
What they carry	Date, time, the number or area code you will call from, and who they are meeting
Manual reminders	Night before about 6 pm, morning of about 8 am, 60 minutes before; from a real phone
How manual reminders read	Short messages in a row; a probing question; a compliment; the next question
A lead who turns up and does not buy	Book the next appointment before the call ends
The laws	Follow the laws in your area

9. What this page does not cover

The five-minute first call is SOP 90, and the double dial, the voicemail and the text in the first attempt are SOP 91. The follow-up pattern for cold outreach lists, to people who have not asked to hear from you, is SOP 29 — Set outreach volume, sections 5 and 7, and it runs differently.

Long-term nurture and the telephone and text-messaging laws are not covered on this page.