Back in June I had pitched myself to an organization for a set-of workshops. Initially they showed a lot of interest in my proposal, however, after a few weeks I received a firm, “Not right now as we have some other proposals on the table that we need to get to first.”
“Other proposals?” My main contact person had not mentioned other proposals in our initial meetings. I wasn’t sure if this was a polite brush-off, or if something else was at play. Now I’m a firm believer in the practice of “if you are never going to know the answer, you might as well assume the best” so I asked my contact if it was okay to follow-up in a few months.
A few months later the alarm I had put in my calendar began going off. “Contact XXX at XXX about workshop.” I had set the alarm to go over for 2-weeks. The first few days I read it, I thought to myself, “They’ve had 3-months to get in touch with me. If they were interested in my proposal I would have heard from them by now.” But by day 5 I had my head on straight and reminded myself to “assume the best.”
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So I picked up the phone and dialed my contact. It went straight to voicemail and I left a friendly message. I then sent an email that restated what I had said in my message, “Just checking in to see if you have any need of my services in the near future.” My contact got back to me almost immediately, “Didn’t you get my email last week?”
When I read the words I could have sung. “They do want me!” A couple of days after I followed up I also received a snail mail letter that predated my follow-up email. Proof again that they had reached out to me after all.
This experience reaffirmed for me two important takeaways:
- If you are never going to know the answer, you might as well assume the best
- It never hurts to follow-up
These two practices have served me very well, but even after years of implementing them, I still enjoy reaping the benefits of remembering why they are important. I hope you can reap the benefits of them as well and would love to hear your thoughts! Be a spark in the world
#EmberLiving
#FollowUp
#AssumeTheBest
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