226: Interested to Invested: Automate Follow-Up That Still Feels Personal

Welcome to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary.

I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger and the strategies and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in.

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to She Thinks Big and the final episode of our Interested to Invested series about the No-Ghosting Follow-Up Approach. I hope that you have been loving this as much as I have. If you have made it all the way to episode three in this mini-series, then you, my friend, are not just interested. You are invested, huh? You're in, and you're ready to really stop letting follow-up fatigue slow you down.

But before we go any further, did you know that this mini-series was inspired by a live workshop that I hosted recently? It was packed with juicy content. The workshop itself was packed with juicy content and templates and live coaching and real-time implementation. If you didn't know about it, if you weren't there live, that tells me one thing. It tells me that you're not on my email list. You're not getting my newsletter. And that is your first step of action today.

I want you to go sign up to get that weekly newsletter because I have something in there called Coaching Corner, where I actually coach you each week in a one-minute little segment. And you wouldn't miss things like the workshop. You'll also get the updates to all the things going on on the podcast and if I'm speaking anywhere, etc, etc, etc.

I want you in these rooms, these live rooms that I'm in with me next time. So you need to go to andrealiebross.com/newsletter to get your name on the newsletter list. So andrealiebross.com/newsletter, I promise I will not send you junk. I will send you things that are valuable.

Even if I'm sending emails about a workshop series and you're like, "Oh my gosh, you're emailing me about this again," read the emails. Because I try to put some tips in there. I don't want it to just be a sales email. I want it to be a valuable email. I do my best to try to make the vast, vast majority of those valuable because I know, I'm like you, we get millions of emails a day.

All right, now let's zoom back to what we're talking about today. If you haven't listened to episodes one or two of this mini-series, which are the previous two episodes of She Thinks Big, press pause right now and go back. Start with episode 224, which is part one of this three-part series, because these episodes build on each other. Today's content only works if you've already laid the foundation.

So let's do a quick recap. In the first episode of this mini-series, we talked about why people actually ghost you. We talked about the mindset shift, the cost of poor follow-up, what it costs you. We talked about the three big reasons people disappear: uncertainty about results, value justification, and unclear next steps. I introduced you to the Bookend Approach, how to structure your conversations from the beginning to the end to reduce the ghosting before it even starts.

Then in episode two, we got into what to do when ghosting does appear. I walked you through the BIG follow-up method and gave you my go-to scripts and templates. We talked about labeling your leads: closed yes, closed no, closed no not yet, and closed ghost. Hopefully, you did your homework and started following up with two or three people who had previously ghosted you. Did you? Did you send that day three message?

If not, that's your sign. Go do it. Because here is the truth. If someone is still a maybe, your job isn't done. Your job is not done if someone is a maybe.

So today we're going to turn up the dial a little bit. We're automating your follow-up system so it runs on autopilot without using the human touch. How does that sound to you?

Now, I want to also remind you that you can get all of this content, all of the content from the podcast, but also all of the content from the workshop, including the action guides and the scripts, if you go over to andrealiebross.com/noghostbundle. You're going to get it all.

Here's what we're diving into today. How to prioritize your leads so you stop treating every prospect the same, how to create a system that captures and schedules follow-up automatically, and the tools and automation steps that let your business scale without you chasing every lead manually.

All right. So let's jump in. You ready? Let's start with this.

Not every prospect should get the same level of follow-up. That's the fastest way to waste your time and to burn yourself out. I want you to picture a grid with two axes. This is going to be the value readiness matrix. Vertical axis, how valuable the prospect is to your business, and horizontal axis, how ready they are to make a decision. So you'll end up with four categories.

In the A-list is the high value, high readiness, that’s the box—high value, high readiness. These are your dream clients. They get the VIP treatment. They get personalized follow-ups, voice notes, video messages. This is where you use that full three to seven to fourteen to thirty-day sequence. These are my people that would be in my mastermind. High value, high readiness.

I had one client, actually, a brand strategist, who was spending the same amount of time on every lead. When she started giving her A-list prospects personalized video messages, her close rate jumped from about 30% to 65% with those ideal leads. So the A-list quadrant, high value, high ready.

Next, the nurture quadrant. High value but low ready. They need time. You're building your relationship. Send quarterly check-ins. Send articles. Send helpful tools. They’re the nurture, high value but low readiness.

Then we have the quick win. Low value but high readiness. They are ready to buy. They want a solution. Maybe not your dream client. So keep things simple. Use a templated response and move quickly.

And then the last quadrant, I call it automation. Just put them in automate mode. Low value, low readiness. These folks go into your long-term nurture bucket. Maybe your newsletter. Maybe a simple sequence. But this is how you stop spending 80% of your time on leads who will never convert. You want to spend 80% of your time on the ones that will convert, those A-list people and probably the nurture people. But not the automate ones. The quick wins, hopefully they’re already a win. You don’t have to spend any time on them.

So you've got to build a system where you are spending 80% of your time on the leads who will convert. Now, how do we do this? Dun dun dun. Here is your practical step-by-step system. Let’s build it. You ready? Let’s build it.

This system is going to have the three Cs: Capture, Calendar, and Content. Can you tell I like acronyms? You're an acronyms person. I bet you are. I bet you are.

So step one is Capture. Every prospect needs to go into your tracking system, whether it’s a spreadsheet or a CRM—Client Relationship Manager, that’s what CRM stands for. Include their contact info. Include notes from your call. If you're using something like Fathom to do calls, put the link to the Fathom recording in there. That’s an AI-generated tool that you can use to record. But most importantly, you want to put in there a follow-up date.

Which is step two, Calendar. Schedule three 30-minute blocks per week that are just for follow-up. I call this your Follow-Up Focus Time. This is where the magic happens consistently. Block this time off like you would a client call. It is non-negotiable time.

Then step three of these three Cs is Content. Organize your templates—your three-day, your seven-day, your fourteen-day, your thirty-day—in a document or on your CRM. That way, you’re never staring at a blank screen, wondering what to say. I actually keep mine in a Google Doc that I can access from anywhere. And when I'm in my Follow-Up Focus Time, I copy, personalize, and send. If it’s not something that’s already automated, by the way, which 90% of it is, but I'm never reinventing the wheel each time.

So let’s get to the automation that works. I want you to think in phases here. There are going to be three phases. Phase One is Foundation. Phase Two is Refinement. Phase Three is Automation. That’s what you're going to need to get this going.

If you're in phase one of automation, it’s your foundation system. It's probably manual automation. It's a spreadsheet. It's a Google Doc. It's calendar reminders. You're doing everything, but it is organized. You're laying the foundation of how you want to do this in the future.

When you get to phase two, it's refinement. Now you're going to move to a basic CRM. Maybe you're doing HubSpot or Pipedrive or Trello, someplace where you can store templates, track leads, set reminders, add a scheduling link.

And then Phase Three of the automation, now we’re talking and taking the full sequence from start to finish. Emails that send automatically at day three, day seven, day fourteen. Behavior-based triggers, like clicking a link. You’re creating nurture tracks based on your value readiness matrix. You're not removing the human, you're just removing the repetitive. There’s a big difference. "You’re not removing the human, you’re just removing the repetitive."

So let me share what this looked like for me. Way back in the day, I started with a really simple spreadsheet. Then I moved to a basic CRM where I set reminders. Now I have sequences that run automatically based on what category my prospect falls into. It's taken my closing rate from about 40 percent to the high 60s percent, and I'm spending less time on the follow-up. Now I'm using a combination of ClickUp and Zapier and ConvertKit, and my brain.

I really want you also to figure out how to optimize this, how to measure what matters. I want you to track a few metrics. This is key, my friends. If you're not tracking metrics, then you're really not going to know what part of the system is not working or what words aren't working or what piece of this nurture isn't working.

So I want you to track the following things: your response rate to any and all follow-up, your conversion rate—how many turn into clients—your ghost rate—how many never respond—and your reactivation rate—how many ghosted leads come back later. Response rate, conversion rate, ghost rate, and reactivation rate.

Then once a month, I want you to review. When you're doing that, tweak your subject lines, refresh your follow-up scripts, adjust your timing, all based on this type of review, because a small tweak can really lead to big results.

For example, one of my clients discovered that her seven-day follow-up was actually converting better than her three-day follow-up. So she adjusted her timing, and now she follows up on day three, day ten, day seventeen, and day thirty. It's her system, and it's getting her results. You've got to tweak your system based on some data after you've given it probably about 90 days of time. But you have to start reviewing the metrics at least once a month.

Alright, that's it. You now have the full system. You've got a structure that prevents ghosting before it even starts. You've got exact follow-up language for when it does happen, because you're human, and we are dealing with other humans. You've got a way to automate and scale so it runs without you micromanaging it.

Here is the truth. Everything I shared in this podcast series, it is just a taste. If you want the entire package full of scripts, the plug-and-play templates, the behind-the-scenes breakdown of my follow-up system, and even the recording of the live workshop and Q&A session where I answered real business questions, then you need to get your hands on the No-Ghost Bundle.

I mentioned it at the beginning. Go to andrealiebross.com/noghostbundle right now. This is the bundle that takes everything we've talked about and turns it into your own customizable system. You'll go from knowing what to do to actually doing it and seeing results. More yeses, less chasing, and a bigger bank account, that’s what we want.

The No-Ghost Bundle is kind of like a shortcut to consistent, confident, non-awkward follow-up that actually works. That is what it looks like to move someone from just interested to invested. Keep thinking big, my friends. You've got this. I'll see you next time.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big! Podcast. If you're ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don't forget to grab a copy of my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It's available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore.

And while you're there, grab a copy for a friend. Inside, you'll both find actionable strategies and empowering insights to help you navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and life, and step confidently into your extraordinary future.

If you found value in today's episode, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you're ready to take this learning a step further and apply it to your own business and life, head to andreaslinks.com and click the button to schedule a discovery call. Until next time, keep thinking big.