Practical Sales Training™ > How To Lose The Sale > Poor Follow Up
Poor Follow Up
You have emails in your inbox right now that fall into this trap. You can probably name the type without even opening them. “Just checking in.” “Did you get my last email?” “Bumping this to the top of your inbox.” Each one is a different way of asking the same thing: can I have your money yet?
The problem is that none of them give the buyer a reason to reply. So they do not. And the more you send, the more you confirm that you are someone worth ignoring.
Poor Follow Up is one of the most common ways sellers lose deals that were still in play. Because the buyer has not said no, the seller keeps pushing. But silence is not an invitation to chase. It is a signal that something is missing, and sending another hollow message will not fix it.
What Is Poor Follow Up?
Poor Follow Up is any follow-up message that adds no value to the buyer. It does not share new information, address a concern, or give the buyer a reason to re-engage. Instead, it simply reminds the buyer that you want a response, without giving them any reason to provide one.
It takes many forms. Some are passive, like “just checking in.” Others are pushy, like fake scarcity claims about limited spaces. A few are just baffling, like sending someone their own name with a question mark. But all of them share the same flaw. They are about the seller’s need, not the buyer’s situation.
Good follow up adds something. It shares a useful insight, answers a question the buyer did not know they had, or gives a clear next step. Poor Follow Up, however, simply asks the buyer to act while giving them nothing new to act on.
Why Does Poor Follow Up Lose the Sale?
It loses the sale because it signals the wrong things. When a buyer receives a string of low-value messages, they draw two conclusions. First, you are not listening. Second, you are more interested in the sale than in them. Neither conclusion makes them want to buy.
There is also a confidence problem. A buyer who is on the fence about you will look for signs that you are the right choice. Poor Follow Up gives them the opposite. It suggests you are under pressure, short on leads, or unable to tell the difference between persistence and pestering.
Buyers are also busy. So when a message arrives that asks for their time but offers nothing in return, they make a quick judgement call. They decide it is not worth replying. The more of these messages they receive, the more certain they become. As a result, what started as a maybe becomes a quiet no.
The hardest part is that the seller often does not know any of this is happening. They are not getting a no. They are just getting silence. But the silence is the answer. Sending another “just checking in” will not change it. It will only confirm it.
How Can You Use Poor Follow Up In Sales?
This is a concept about what to avoid. But understanding each type of Poor Follow Up helps you spot it in your own outreach and stop it before it costs you a buyer.
Checking In or Touching Base
This is the most common form of Poor Follow Up. It says nothing. If the buyer was ready to move forward, they would have replied already. “Checking in” tells the buyer you have nothing new to say. Because it adds no value, it gets ignored.
“Did You Get My Email?”
Both of you know the email arrived. The buyer has not replied because they are not interested or not ready, not because of a technical glitch. This question is a gentle accusation dressed up as concern. It rarely prompts a reply. More often, it prompts an unsubscribe.
Bumping to the Top of Your Inbox
Emails do not need bumping. The buyer knows where their inbox is. This phrase adds no value and wastes the subject line. It also highlights that you have nothing new to say, which is the worst thing to highlight in a follow-up.
The Single Question Mark
Sending a buyer their own name followed by a question mark is the lowest effort follow-up that exists. It is passive-aggressive, lazy, and easily the most irritating thing a seller can send. It will not get a reply. It will get you blocked.
Invoking Obligation
You are not owed a response. Buyers do not have to reply, and reminding them that they should is rude. If a buyer feels scolded for not responding, they will not suddenly feel motivated to engage. They will feel annoyed and relieved that they did not move forward with you.
False Scarcity
Claiming you only have two spaces left when your product has unlimited capacity is not clever urgency. It is dishonest. Buyers who see through it lose all trust in you. Even buyers who do not see through it may feel manipulated later. Either way, you damage the relationship before it starts.
Forced Comedy
Some sellers try to break the silence with a joke. “Were you abducted by penguins?” is a real example. The intention is to seem human and approachable. But to a busy buyer who has already decided they are not interested, an odd joke from a stranger just feels strange. It does not reopen the door. It confirms you should have stopped sooner.
Spamming
Sending the same message twelve times because the buyer has not replied is not persistence. It is ignoring feedback. The silence after the first email is information. After the third, it is a clear signal. By the twelfth, the buyer is not going to change their mind. They are going to mark you as spam.
When Poor Follow Up Is Most Damaging
Poor Follow Up is most damaging when the buyer was genuinely considering you. A buyer who was close to saying yes can be pushed firmly into no by a string of hollow messages. Because the follow-up removes confidence rather than adding it, the moment passes and does not come back.
It is also damaging in competitive situations. If a buyer is weighing you against a rival, how you follow up is part of how they judge you. One seller who follows up well shows they understand people. One who sends “just bumping this” shows they do not. That contrast can decide the outcome.
Similarly, Poor Follow Up harms your reputation over time. Buyers talk. A heavy-handed or irritating follow-up sequence gets remembered and shared. In small markets, that kind of reputation is hard to shake.
Common Poor Follow Up Mistakes
Confusing Activity With Progress
Sending ten follow-ups feels productive. But if none of them add value, they are not moving the sale forward. They are just creating noise. Volume of messages is not a measure of effort that counts. What counts is whether the buyer has a new reason to engage after each one.
Following Up Without a New Hook
Every follow-up needs a reason to exist. Think of a new insight, a useful resource, a relevant case study, or a direct question about a barrier the buyer might be facing. Without a hook, the message has no job to do. It just reminds the buyer that you are waiting, which is not a reason to reply.
Not Knowing When to Stop
There is a point where following up becomes harassment. Most sellers push past it without realising. Stop when you have run out of things to add. If the next message would just be a rephrased version of the last one, it is time to pause and either find a new angle or move your attention elsewhere.
Spending Time on Cold Contacts Instead of New Ones
The time spent sending a seventh follow-up to a silent buyer could be used to reach someone new. If a buyer has not responded after several well-crafted messages, the odds of the next one working are low. So use that time to find fresh prospects instead. Because the pipeline always matters more than any single deal.
Poor Follow Up – An Example
Imagine you sign up for a free guide on marketing tips. Within ten days you receive this sequence:
- Day 1: “Just checking in to see if you read my last email?”
- Day 3: “Bumping this to the top of your inbox!”
- Day 5: “Did you get my email?”
- Day 7: “We only have 2 spaces left for our coaching program – act fast!” (it is an online course with unlimited spots).
- Day 10: “James?”
By the fifth message, you are more irritated than curious. None of the emails added anything useful. There was no new idea, no question about your situation, and no sign that the sender understood you at all. Instead, every message made it clear that they needed a sale. That need, so visible and so urgent, is exactly what kills the deal.
Good follow up would have done the opposite. It would have given you something worth reading, so you had a reason to reply. But Poor Follow Up does not give you a reason. So you do not.
See Also
- If you want to know how to follow up correctly, check out this Practical Sales Training™ course.
- 60+ ways to LOSE the sale
