American military practice produces the SITREP on a schedule — what has changed, what is known, what is expected — and pushes it up and sideways whether or not anything has happened. The report goes out on time even when the content is that nothing occurred, because a gap in the stream is itself information.
The status update
American organizations run a rhythm of them: weekly team updates, monthly reports, quarterly reviews, daily notes. The cadence is the point rather than the content. The system assumes that information will stop moving unless something scheduled makes it move.
On the same page
Are we on the same page? Let’s get everyone on the same page. I want to make sure we’re on the same page. The condition is shared information, and the phrase treats it as something that must be actively checked rather than assumed.
Radio silence
Borrowed from military communications and used in American offices about a colleague who has stopped responding. It is a complaint, and it names the absence itself as the problem. Nothing is alleged about why they went quiet.
Heads up
Advance warning, given unprompted, about something the other person will otherwise meet without preparation. The metaphor is physical — lift your head, something is coming. It is offered as a courtesy, and it is expected as one.
The reproach
Why am I just hearing about this now? Nobody told me. A heads up would have been nice. I had to find out from someone else. I was the last to know.
Five standard American complaints, and every one of them is aimed at the person who held the information rather than at the person who failed to ask for it.
The status column
American project tools display the state of every commitment as a field — green, amber, red, or on track, at risk, blocked — updated by the owner and visible to everyone. The design assumes the status changes. A system built for agreements that hold at the level they were set would not need the column at all.
Just checking in
Just circling back. Following up on this. Any update? Bumping this to the top of your inbox. Did you get a chance to look at this?
Five standard American formulations for asking whether an agreement is still an agreement, and every one of them apologises in the asking.
They are sent routinely, received without offence, and answered. Nobody treats the question as doubt about the person, because everybody is sending them.
The standing meeting
American organisations schedule the follow-up before it is needed — the weekly one-to-one, the Monday stand-up, the biweekly check-in, the quarterly business review.
The meeting exists in the calendar whether or not there is anything to discuss. Its function is not the agenda. It is the guarantee that the status will be revisited at a known interval.
Ask !
In May 2014 John Barrows – a sales trainer for companies like Salesforce, Box, LinkedIn, Marketo, Zendesk – posted the following advice on follow-up in SalesHacker:
Question: How do you follow up effectively with a potential client without being annoying?
1. Ask for guidance on the best way to follow up with them while adding value and not being annoying. You know who does know how to effectively follow up with the client The client. Ask them.
2. Ask what their preferred form of communication is and if they will respond. This is different than asking them about the best way to follow up. This is about their preferred form of communication and getting them to commit to a level of responsiveness. I literally ask people – “what is your preferred form of communication moving forward here? Is it cell, e-mail, text?”
3. Make sure you always end each conversation with a clearly defined next step. It kills me how often I see sales reps get off the phone after a good conversation with a prospect without a clearly defined next step scheduled on the calendar. The easiest time to get a commitment on a next meeting is at the end of the meeting you just had.
4. Summarize your conversations and get written confirmation. At the end of every decent conversation, I always send an e-mail that summarizes what we talked about and asks for their confirmation.
5. Always have a reason to reach out and never just call to ‘touch base’ or ‘check in’. I am on a personal crusade to get ‘touching base’ and ‘checking in’ out of the vocabulary of sales professionals.
Add value. Don’t annoy.