The Follow-Up That Adds Something

Imagine a coach named Marit Solberg who meets Mr. Adeyemi, who founded a logistics company and is selling it. He wants coaching through the sale, and the meeting runs an hour. He asks her to send a proposal, and she sends it that evening. It says six months, two sessions a month, the fee, and a start in October. He writes back the next morning, “Thank you, I will come back to you.” Then nothing.

Four days later, Marit writes again. “I wanted to make sure the proposal came through, and to see whether you had any thoughts.” Three days after that, she writes a third time, with the proposal attached again “in case it is easier to find.” She adds that October is filling up. The following Monday she calls his office and leaves a message with his assistant.

Mr. Adeyemi was not deciding against her. He was waiting for a board meeting on the 18th, where the sale would be agreed or not. His assistant, Ms. Ferreira, has the three emails and the phone message in one thread, and she mentions them. “The coach has written three times.” Mr. Adeyemi reads the thread on the way to the meeting. What he sees is a coach who needs the job more than he needs a coach. After the meeting, he asks his banker which coach she used.

Suppose instead that Marit’s proposal ends with a sentence about what happens next. “I will write again on the 19th, when you have had time to read this.” On the 19th she writes once. “Dear Mr. Adeyemi, on Tuesday you asked whether I had coached a founder through the year after a sale. I have, twice, and I can tell you how both went when we next speak. If you would like to go ahead, the agreement is one page, and I will send it the day you say so.” Mr. Adeyemi reads it the morning after the board meeting. The board agreed the sale. He writes back, “Let’s start.”

Marit proposed the same coaching at the same fee both times. What changed is what her follow-up carried. The first three emails carried nothing Mr. Adeyemi did not already have, and each one told him she was waiting. The last email carried an answer to his question and the next step. Here is why the first three chased him and the last one did not, and how to write that one.

A client who has not replied is usually still deciding

A wealthy household makes its big decisions together, after you have left. The person who met you has to find the evening to talk it over with a husband, a wife, or a board. Above a certain level of wealth, an assistant is in the thread as well. So a week of silence after a proposal is most often the household deciding. It is the quiet of a client who is thinking, and it is theirs.

That changes the question a follow-up has to answer. The question is not how to get a reply out of the client. It is whether you have anything to send them while they decide. The course’s test is one question. Is there something in this email that the client did not have before it arrived? If there is, the email is for the client. If there is not, the email is for you, and the client can tell. “I wanted to see whether you had any thoughts” gives the client nothing and asks them for something. It is the sentence added into a silence, written down and sent.

A photographer’s mentor says the email after a meeting adds one new fact and names the next step

Walid Azami is a photographer who mentors other photographers. In August 2026, he published a post on the email after a client meeting. The client has shown interest and has not yet said yes. He names the worry first. “You don’t want to look desperate,” he writes. “You don’t want to be too pushy, annoying or salesy.”

His second step is the one that matters here. “Offer one clear value point that wasn’t addressed in your call or meeting,” he writes. His example is a photographer who, on the drive home, remembers a studio and lighting rental booked for another shoot that week. If the client books the day after, both clients can share the rental and save money. “Just give a little something extra and they’ll remember it,” he writes.

His third step is to “outline a next step for them.” His example offers the contract by the end of the day and a first mood board two business days later. The email that does neither, he writes, is one you “litter their inbox” with, “a redundant email.”

Measured against this lesson, the two steps are the method. The rental is a fact the client did not have, and it is a fact about the client’s money. The contract date is the next step. Two parts of his post differ from this lesson’s advice. He also says to “play hard-to-get but still attainable,” and his sample email opens with how happy he is about the meeting. You are not trying to seem anything to the client; you are giving them a fact. And the second reader of an email sees the happiness before the rental. Put the fact first and leave the feeling out, and the rest of his method stands.

A writer tells a wedding planner to name a date, write once after it, and let go

Alexandra Franzen writes an advice column on her site about writing and communication. In a 2015 column, a wedding planner named Karis asked what to do when a couple goes quiet after her quote. Franzen’s first answer is that the planner cannot know why. The silence “might have nothing to do with the way you are communicating,” she writes, and it “might have everything to do with the way you are communicating.”

Her method has four steps. At the end of the call, tell the client exactly what happens next. In the quote email, keep it brief and add a date: “I’d love to hear back from you by [DATE].” If the date passes with no word, send one short nudge. If a couple more days pass after that with no word, she writes, “I would stop checking in.”

The nudge she writes has a PS, and the PS is the part that adds something. It points the couple to something they love, with “here’s something I think you will absolutely adore.” Measured against this lesson, the PS belongs at the top of the email, not the bottom. The sentences above it come out. Her nudge opens “Just circling back,” which is a phrase that asks for approval, and it says she is excited to get started. The person the couple forwards it to sees the circling back first. Her last sentence stands as it is. “The BEST clients are the ones who are ready to rock, right from the get-go, and who do NOT need to be chased, prodded, persuaded, or wrangled.”

Two coaches of designers put the follow-up date into the proposal itself

Kris and Donna run Design and Prosper, a business school for graphic designers. In an episode of their podcast from April 2022, they answer a question their students keep asking. You have sent the proposal, and now “you’ve got crickets.” Their first advice comes before the silence. “When you send the proposal, you say in the email, when you’re going to follow up,” Kris says. Donna adds, “pop a date on there.” Then the client is expecting the email, and it arrives as something promised rather than something extra.

They give a reason for silence that most professionals do not think of. Kris had assumed all kinds of reasons for one client’s quiet, “and it was actually that it had gone into spam.” So their second follow-up, at the end of the week, changes the channel to a phone call or a message. At the two-week mark, Donna says, “it’s time to put that one to bed.” The last email says the proposal is on pause until the client writes.

Measured against this lesson, the date in the proposal and the close at two weeks are the parts to keep. Their email at 48 hours opens “Just checking in that you received my email,” which is the phrase this course replaces with a fact. Their later two each carry something new, a different channel and then the close. That is why neither one is a chase. Their clients run businesses, and the step to a household is the course’s own.

Three kinds of fact a follow-up can carry

The three kinds below are the course’s own, and here is what they have in common. Each one is something the client did not have before the email. Each one is about the client’s decision, not about your wait.

An answer the client did not have. In the meeting the client asked something you could not answer then, or a question came up afterward. Marit’s answer about the year after a sale is this kind. So is the exam date a tutor looks up, or the second room a travel adviser confirms with the hotel.

A change on your side. Something in what you proposed has moved. It might be a date, the price of one part, or the person who will be on the job. When your calendar changes, tell the client the day it changes, as a fact, and tell them once.

The next step with its date. What happens the day the client says yes, and how soon. “The agreement is one page, and I will send it the day you say so.” This one you have every time, because it is a fact about you. It is the one to use when the other two are empty.

A follow-up does not carry the proposal again, and it does not carry the news that you are waiting. The client has the proposal, so a second copy says only that you think they lost it. The news that you are waiting is the one fact that is about you.

The line is crossed when the email is for you

A follow-up with nothing new in it is written for a reason. The reason is usually that the job has started to matter to you. The month looks thin, or this is the client you have wanted, or the fee is the biggest you have quoted. The email goes out to settle that feeling, not to tell the client anything. The line is the same test as before. An email with nothing in it for the client is for the professional.

The client can tell, and here is how. Nothing in the email is about them. “October is filling up” was true when Marit wrote it, and it was about her month. Three emails in ten days are about her wait. The seller who keeps pitching after the yes has made the sale about themselves. So has the seller who keeps writing before it. What Mr. Adeyemi read was not three emails about coaching. It was a coach for whom the sale had become important. A client does not hire a coach who needs the job more than he does.

Why adding anything goes wrong

Imagine a music teacher named Oskar Brandt who meets Mrs. Haverford about cello lessons for her daughter, Clara, who is 13. He sends a proposal for the autumn term. Mrs. Haverford writes that she is waiting for the school timetable before she can fix an afternoon. Oskar has read that a follow-up should add something, so on the date he named he adds a great deal. He sends a link to an article on practice habits and a video tour of his studio. He adds a guide to the exam boards and a list of the pieces Clara might play. The email runs to two screens.

Mrs. Haverford opens it on her phone and closes it again. She has not got the timetable yet, and now she has reading to do before she can reply. A fortnight later she hires the teacher the school’s head of music suggested. That teacher wrote one sentence, about the youth orchestra’s audition date.

Oskar added four items, and none of them was a fact Mrs. Haverford needed for her decision. The other teacher added one, and it was the one she did not have. The version of Oskar’s email that works is that sentence. “The youth orchestra auditions on the 14th of November, so if Clara starts in September, she will have eight weeks.” Then the next step with its date, and nothing else.

Writing again is not pestering

Many professionals would rather lose the job than send a second email. The second email feels like pestering a client who has said they will come back.

In 2023, Peggy Liu of the University of Pittsburgh and three colleagues published a series of experiments on reaching out. They appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. One person sent a short message or a small gift to check in on someone they knew. Again and again, the person who sent it underestimated how much the other person appreciated it. The gap was wider when the message was a surprise and when the two people were not close. Those were friends and acquaintances, not a client with a proposal on the desk. The step to your client is the course’s own. Kris says the same. “Following up is not annoying. It’s caring.”

What the experiments do not cover is the chase. The message in those studies carried something, a greeting or a gift, and that is what was appreciated. Marit’s one email on the 19th carried an answer. Her three in ten days carried a wait. The first kind is welcomed, the way the messages in those experiments were. The second gets the verdict Mr. Adeyemi gave the thread.

How to follow up without chasing

1. End your proposal email with the date you will write again, after the fee and the next step. If the client told you when they will decide, put your date after theirs. For example, a home organizer whose client is away until the 10th writes, “I will write again on the 12th, once you are back.”
2. On that date, before you write a word, find the one fact you can add. It is an answer you owed the client, a change on your side, or the next step with its date. If a question is still open, find the answer first, even if it takes a phone call.
3. Write the fact as the first sentence, for the person the client will forward it to. Do not attach the proposal again, and do not say that you have been waiting. For example, a private chef can write, “You asked whether I could do the Friday dinners without shellfish. I can, and the menu I would start with is below.”
4. When you have no answer and nothing has changed, write the next step with its date and stop. For example, a dog walker can write, “If you would like Rufus to start, the first walk can be Monday the 7th at 7:30, and I will bring the key box that morning.”
5. If two weeks pass after that email with no reply, write once more. Say what you will do with the date you are holding, as a fact. Say that you are there if their plans change. For example, a florist can write, “As I have not heard from you, I will release the 20th on Friday. If your plans change, write to me and I will see what I have.” Then stop, and write the date on the client’s page.
6. Before you send any follow-up, read it once as the second reader and ask what in it is for the client. If the answer is nothing, do not send it. Count the follow-ups you send on each proposal. When the count passes two, read the emails again for what they say about you.

Next: You will see how to follow a client from email to text and the phone. You will also see what your reply time tells them about you.