Every salesperson faces it: the customer goes quiet. That old familiar urge creeps up—just reach out and say, “Hey, checking in!” Don’t do it.
Those flimsy follow-ups don’t create confidence. They broadcast desperation.
“You will sound desperate if you are not bringing new value in your message.”
Desperation is the death of healthy sales. Customers pick up on it instantly, and they either tune out or dig in their heels. No sale ever closed out of pity.
Value Is the Antidote to Desperation
The difference between a desperate salesperson and a confident one comes down to this: Are you delivering new insight every time you reach out?
If follow-up is just a repeat of what’s already been sent, it gets ignored—or worse, it backfires.
A valuable message is short. It’s one or two fresh sentences, not an essay or a data dump.
Sending “just checking in” is what you do at a hotel. It shouldn’t be what appears in your customer’s inbox.
“If people are not responding to your short email, they are certainly not going to respond to War and Peace.”
Make every message count. Provide a new way for your customer to see their problem, an industry tip, or a relevant observation they haven’t considered.
Build Your ’10 List’
This isn’t about flooding the customer with features or catalogs.
Create a running list of insights—five, ten, even twenty—relevant to their business. These can be tips, best practices, or even broader business advice. The best part? They don’t always need to tie directly to your product.
For instance, pitching to sales leaders? Send tips for preventing employee turnover or smart ideas for hiring effective salespeople.
The focus: Provide actionable value, not another product pitch.
Personalize, Don’t Generalize
No one trusts a cookie-cutter message.
When a prospect feels like they’re receiving the same message as everyone else, it triggers instant resistance.
“You will sound desperate if what the customer is receiving feels like a generic response.”
Relate each message to the customer’s specific world—their job, their industry, their challenges.
If your competitors are spamming generic follow-ups, meaningful, personalized insights will quickly set you apart.
Permission-Based Language Wins Hearts
Hard closes make people defensive. Instead, use permission-based questions.
Language like, “Does it make sense for us to schedule a follow-up?” or “Should we talk about this?” is inviting, not pushy.
No one likes feeling cornered. Be collaborative, not forceful.
Customers want to buy on their time frame for their reasons, not because it’s the end of your sales quarter.
How Often Should You Follow Up?
There’s no magic number, only a golden rule: As long as you keep delivering fresh, specific value, you can follow up more than you think.
- Calling on a CEO? Space out communication every two to three weeks.
- Reaching frontline supervisors? Once or twice a week works.
- Selling consumables? More frequent follow-ups make sense.
- Capital expenditures? Less frequent, more thoughtful.
Each opportunity deserves a cadence tailored to buyer seniority and purchase type.
And yes, following up 60, 70, even 90 times isn’t outrageous when every touch provides value. The selling cycle is as long as it needs to be.
Keep It Simple, Fast, and Direct
Avoid attachments like PDFs—they flag you as spam and discourage replies. Instead, drop a quick line: “Hey, I have five ways you can reduce costs—want the list?” That’s it.
Sometimes you won’t get a response right away. That’s fine. The relationship grows with every valuable touchpoint, not just through replies.
When All Else Fails, Shift the Conversation
If nothing sticks after several attempts, switch it up. Tackle a different topic or business problem. But above all, never resend the exact same message.
Repetition feels lazy and desperate. Insightful variety keeps you credible and interesting.
Ban forever:
- “Just checking in.”
- “Wanted to bump this to the top of your inbox.”
- “Not sure if you saw my last email.”
Those old-school moves are out. Integrity and insight are in.
Final Word: Sell Yourself First
Customers buy when they trust the source. The first sale is always you.
Build that trust through a cadence of fresh, meaningful insights, not recycled emails or tired pleas for attention. Confidence, not desperation, creates action.
This is how effective follow-up works—and how deals move forward.
Mark Hunter :
How to follow up without sounding desperate. It’s an issue you face every salesperson faces. The customer is not responding. How do you follow up? That’s the topic and the show begins right now. You’re listening to the Sales Hunter podcast with Mark Hunter where the focus is to help you as a salesman sell with confidence and integrity. And now here’s your host, foreign. Let’s cut to the chase. Right now you are going to sound desperate if you follow up by saying, hey, buy from me.
Mark Hunter :
Hey, just checking in. Okay, Just checking in. Excuse me, Isn’t that what you do when you check into a hotel? That’s not an email you send to somebody or I want to bounce this to the top of your email. No, wrong. Bad. You already sent one bad email. Now you’re confirming it by sending it again. Hey, what does it come down to? You will sound desperate if you are not bringing new value in your message.
Mark Hunter :
What does this mean? Every message that you send must create a level of new insight or new information. It’s something new. I’ve talked about this in other podcasts. I want you to go back and listen to them because I’m very serious. Because here’s the whole situation. If you are not delivering new insights because now remember, hey, you’re following up and you’re sounding desperate and the customer knows you’re desperate because the customer is not confident in willing to make a decision to buy from you because they’re not confident. You have not demonstrated to them enough reason as to why they should do business with you. Now here’s the situation.
Mark Hunter :
It is not about then throwing over additional features, product features. Let me show you this. Let me show you this. No, no. You are not putting in front of them a menu for the world’s largest buffet. Wrong. What you are doing is you’re giving to them insights, very specific insights. You’re giving to them.
Mark Hunter :
One or two sentences now again, it’s not long. Tldr too long. Did read this is the problem with so many follow up emails is that people start throwing the kitchen sink at them. Let me tell you something. If people are not responding to your short email, they are certainly not going to respond to War and Peace. No, it’s about keeping it short and simple. It’s sharing with them one quick insight. Now the the best strategy and I’m going to walk you through it again.
Mark Hunter :
And I’ve shared with you before, but it’s what I call my 10 list. Now there’s nothing magical about 10. It could be a 5 list, it could be a 20 list could be anything. But you just list out what are key things that the customer should know that could help them in their business. It may not even be directly related to what it is that you sell. No, it’s just providing them value. You see, in my own business, you know, I do a lot of sales kickoff meetings, I do a lot of consulting and coaching and so forth. But I may share with sales leaders who I’m trying to get in front of information relative to how to reduce employee turnover.
Mark Hunter :
I may send them things to look for when they’re hiring new salespeople. I, I send them tips and ideas. Now what am I doing? I’m trying to create a level of dialogue, a level of communication. Now I admit this is going to go on one way, but I’m sharing with them information and they are seeing that I’m bringing them value. Now I’m going to do a series of these. I’m going to put these out. Now I said I have a 10 list. Okay, so I may send them all 10.
Mark Hunter :
Chances are I don’t because it’s too much tldr. I’m going to send them just a few. But sometimes I will say again, every lead, every qualified prospect I’m following up with, I might be using a slightly different strategy because I’m zeroed in on them. See this is the whole thing. You will sound desperate if what the customer is receiving feels like a generic response. And it’s the response you send everyone that without a doubt you have to get very specific. So in other words, I’m going to provide you very specific insights that are relative to you, your job, your industry, your world. Now I’m going to use then permission based language to help reinforce this.
Mark Hunter :
Does it make sense for us to schedule a follow up meeting? Should we talk about this? In other words, I’m inviting them. I’m not, I’m not demanding it, I’m just inviting them. When should we talk next regarding this? Now here’s the situation. Some people are going to say, mark, that sounds very soft. No, it isn’t soft. It’s not. Because here’s the whole thing. If I come at you just full throttle in your face, you’re going to shut me down.
Mark Hunter :
Then I get, I get no response, I get nothing. Right? And oh by the way, even if you did response, you’re going to be extremely defensive in communicating with me. If I come at you with permission based language. Now I’m coming across as I’m creating a relationship with you and I’m creating a longer term playbook. Well, Mark, hold up. I got to close this deal this quarter. I’ve got, I’ve got to get this deal here situation. The customer is not going to buy from you just because you need the deal by quarter end they are not going to buy from you.
Mark Hunter :
And get, if those are the tricks that you play, that’s commission breath and they’re going to, they’re going to immediately smoke you out for a big discount. What they want is they want to buy on their time frame to their decisions. That’s what integrity first selling is all about. That’s why I wrote the book Integrity for Selling because it’s, it’s to show you a different playbook. Now the playbook is very simply this. I deliver to you the value and the insights that you are looking for. In other words, I’m helping you do your job better. And in so doing you increase the level of confidence that you have with me.
Mark Hunter :
And as you increase that level of confidence with me, you begin hearing what I say in a different way. Light. And now what’s happening is that I’m coming across to you as an authority. I’m coming across to you as a peer. I’m coming across to you as somebody who you can respect. And now when I begin to say, hey, does it make sense for us to talk? You say, yeah, it does make sense. It does make sense because I’ve validated myself because of the information I’ve shared with you. You see, what I’m doing here is I’m providing you.
Mark Hunter :
Now here’s the situation. People say, well, I sent them an email last week, I can’t send them an email this week because it’s too much false. Remember, you can send them as much communication and I’ll get to that. There’s a little bit of a hashtag or asterisk I should say after that you can send them as much communication as you have insights that you can share with them that are going to help them. With an asterisk. The asterisk is this. The further up you are in an organization, in other words, to who you’re reaching out to. If you’re reaching out to a CEO, I’m only going to reach out to them every two to three weeks at the most.
Mark Hunter :
If I’m reaching out to a frontline supervisor, I can reach out to them minimally once or twice a week. You see, the further up I go in an organization, the less frequently because they operate on different time frames. Second, if what I’m selling is a consumable, is an expensable item, something that they repeat by frequently. Again, I’m going to increase my level of communication. If, on the other hand, what I’m selling is a cap x capital expenditure, then it’s going to be on a longer time frame because typically it has to fit their budget, what they’ve already got allocated. So then those are some parameters that you have to factor in and, and everything is going to, and every opportunity is going to be a little bit different. Again. I got a number of podcasts out there.
Mark Hunter :
You can jump out to my website, thesaleshunter.com a lot of content out there on this. But what I’m doing is, I’m saying that I can follow up much more than salespeople realize if you’re delivering value. I have got in my CRM system notes of many, many people, many, many companies that I have followed up with 60, 70, 80, 90 times before I got a sale. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I am. And you can go back and look at the roadmap and each time it’s a message where I’m delivering value. Yeah, yeah, I’m still trying to sell. I’m trying to sell. But remember, the first thing I’m selling is myself because I’m trying to get them to feel confident in talking with me.
Mark Hunter :
Yeah. Now, does this approach work both from a prospecting when I’m first developing the lead, as much as it does from somebody who is a qualified prospect to somebody who I’ve already put the offer across the table? Yes, it does. It works regardless of where you are in the selling cycle. What I want you to do is I want you to create this list of bullet points and things. And if you go into my Dropbox, I’ve got a folder in there and I’ve got probably 30 or 40 of these 10 lists. I’ve got hundreds of them, hundreds of them. And they’re very quickly. I, I can brainstorm them very, very quickly.
Mark Hunter :
But these are just one sentences, one line. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I can share with somebody, I can share with them. Five ways to reduce costs here, 10 ways to do this thing. And, and I, I can just put them out. Depending on who it is that I’m reaching out to is going to determine now the majority of them are around what it is that I do. I, I, I help companies, I help companies sell. So sell data storage systems.
Mark Hunter :
You may sell cyber security. So what does that mean? So we’ll go and use cyber security. You may sell cyber security. So what you’re going to be doing is, is you’re going to be putting together 10 lists and so forth of things that companies need to do to make sure that they’re in a secure environment and to avoid hacks and to avoid phishing and how to avoid all those various issues. You may sell industrial bearings, so then it might be, hey, how are industrial bearings used now? It’s not, it’s not getting into your product features, don’t get into your product features, but it’s how to, how to increase the life, how to reduce maintenance, how to ensure equipment downtime is minimized, how to streamline changeover. You see, what I’m doing is I’m creating these lists and when I have these lists, it is amazing at how fast, fast I can bang out follow up emails, follow. And oh, by the way, I can use these in voicemails. Yeah.
Mark Hunter :
Hey, I, I’ve got five things love to share with you regarding employee retention. Give me a call, love to chat with you about them. Oh, that’s my voicemail period. Boom. I’m not giving them the actual information in the voicemail, I’m just saying, hey, I’ve got this insight and, and I may go ahead and right away then email them one or two. Now, I don’t normally include a PDF. In other words, people say, Mark, you have this 10 list and is it PDF? No, I don’t, I don’t, don’t attach because when you create attachments you automatically flag yourself and chances are it’s going to go to spam, it’s going to go to junk, it’s going to get blocked. So I might just include one or two in there and say, hey, email me back, call me.
Mark Hunter :
Happy to share with you the entire list. Does it generate a response? No, but, but it keeps the conversation going. Did you hear what I said? Does it generate a response? No, but it keeps the conversation going. And what happens is I drop enough of these in your lap, then I do get a response and everyone includes some permission based language. This is key. This is my call to action. Permission based language. Now what happens if, if, if I go through this and I’ve been going through this and nothing’s happening, then you know what, you can change the conversation.
Mark Hunter :
Change the conversation. You may begin talking about a different topic, different subject. That’s okay, but what I don’t want you to do is I don’t want you to repeat and send the same thing out over and over again. Hey, I sent this to you last week. Did you get a chance to look at it. Don’t send that. Because again, if you take on time and it doesn’t take much time, you’ve got a plethora. It’s today’s word, plethora.
Mark Hunter :
You’ve got a plethora of information that you can share. So there’s no need for you to simply sit there and repeat it. Because what I found is this. If I repeat comes across as desperation because even though you might say, well, I don’t know, if they saw that, you don’t know for sure. If they didn’t see it, they might have seen it and it just didn’t resonate with them. Be very careful. Hey, my whole goal is to get you to be confident in terms of being able to follow up without sounding desperate. May we forever ban.
Mark Hunter :
I want to bounce this to the top of your email list. Not sure if you saw this, sending it to you again or just checking in. I want you to take those and and ban those so you never, ever do them. Because none of those meet the criteria of integrity first selling. I’m Mark Hunter, the sales hunter. I love talking to you about sales. Hey, if any of this has resonated, give me a buzz. Leave a review on your favorite podcast app.
Mark Hunter :
Make sure you’ve picked up the book Integrity First Selling. And more importantly than ever, I’d like to have a conversation with you. Reach out. We’ll see if it makes sense. I’m Mark out of the sales center. Great selling.
