Business
Matters
Magazine
Following Through & Following Up
by Mary Black
“Following through and following up” is the third component of my three-part series that began with “It’s All About the People," followed by “Listening and Hearing. Following through and following up is the icing on the cake when it comes to a formula for success in business. In almost every scenario, securing repeat business is the goal, and without it, your business’s longevity is in question.
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Whether it be a product or service, following through on your commitment to deliver seems straightforward at face value. However, following through is a multi-dimensional task. It pushes past ithe basics of delivering a product to its intended recipient. This is where your attention to quality
and your consistency comes into play. It’s an essential key that sets you apart from the competition, especially with how saturated the business landscape is.
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Our business’s reputation is a result of what our customers come to expect from us—that has the potential to be good or bad in their minds. Personal perception of what meeting expectations means is irrelevant without the validation of our customers. With a wide range of customers to impress, the level to which we must perform to meet the expectations has several layers. However, when we consider all the variables and aim and to exceed the expectations of our recipients, we build a sustainable business by retaining our customers for life with this successful execution.
In 20+ years of leading an IT business delivering complex software solutions to the US government, one factor has been determined as an impossible piece of the equation to avoid: past performance. Contract owners are tasked with the mandatory obligation of filling out a formal performance evaluation. These are an important component of the source selection procedure that is used in the decision-making process. Every business vying for these contracts must complete them. This is one of the most challenging elements of business as a government contractor. It takes time and effort to build up a solid track record, and if your evaluations aren’t stellar, it may be to your detriment. The competition in this space leaves no room for mediocre opinions of the quality of your work.
Following up with our customers throughout the life cycle of our contract allowed us to hear firsthand how they perceived our overall quality of product delivery, customer service, and level of performance. This not only ensures any extensions are executed but is also a game changer when stacking your business up against your competition for future opportunities.
Embedding the important elements outlined within this series into your fundamental practices as an entrepreneur—focusing on people, listening, hearing, following up, and following through—sets a strong foundation to build upon, proving to be a winning strategy for all businesses.
Join me again to discuss ‘Matters of Business’ in the next issue of Business Matters Magazine, and participate in riveting discourse on the topic, “Building Company Culture: How to Make It Stick."