5 major startup activities that need follow up:

As a business owner, you could be doing a variety of activities on a daily basis. You will also realize that you will be unable to dedicate an adequate amount of time and energy on all the tasks. You would hence need to prioritize your tasks and do the things that are both important as well as urgent.

Lots of thoughts and lots of ideas do keep coming across in your mind. However, you will have to implement it. Ideas without execution is time wasted. You should ensure that a variety of activities you do should be executed as per the plan.  So, there are certainly important activities in startups where one must never fail to do the follow-up. They are:

• Networking in business
• Business negotiations
• Product enhancement.
• Marketing and Sales
• Existing Customer Relationships

Let us look at them in details:

Networking in business:

One of the important tasks a startup has to do is to let people know that they exist. The startups will not have the money to be able to afford a big bang advertising budget in any of the mass media or on social media. They will have very limited money. But they can always find the time to network with people within their locality. Sometimes, they can even go into places where their customers are likely to be around. The entrepreneur can introduce themselves, their organization, their services and can spread the word around. Networking is important in business as it will open up lots of opportunities

For entrepreneurs, effective networking is required to find the optimal investors, partners, or customers. it Out of sight.. Out of mind.. Hence it is important that networking is kept as a consistent activity.

Business negotiations:

Every startup needs considerable investment in its business. To find the right investor, several meetings, discussions are carried out. The investors expect the entrepreneurs to have their homework done before the initial meeting. The business plan, the financial model which they are planning to use has to be figured out. Since each investor has several startups in line, you have to stand out amongst the others.

Product enhancement:

In a startup, the product details and specifications keep changing until the potential and the actual customers are satisfied with the functionalities and the business outcome.  The plan needs to change on a constant basis and the product road map will have so many of surprises. When this follow-up on issues is missed, your product enhancement is likely to get affected.

Marketing and Sales:

The real follow-up practice happens majorly in marketing and sales activities. The prospect has to be followed up till the end of the sales/marketing funnel to convert them into potential leads. Follow-up plays a vital role in sales and marketing.

Customers hesitate to place their bets on startups and give business. This is because of their uncertainties in dealing with startups. Hence the entrepreneurs have to follow up very diligently to allay the concerns of the customers and make them give the business.

Relationships with the existing customers:

Do you know that more sales happen with existing customers than new ones? That is the single most reason why it is very important to maintain a healthy relationship with the already existing customer. Once you lose your existing customer, they are said to be lost forever. So, each customer has to be valued like an asset and consistent follow-ups have to be carried out

When you follow up regularly on the tasks that are important to you, you will be able to prioritize and get things done on time. Not following up and leaving it to chance will not help as the outcome will be a stroke of luck.  So, the question do you need the ability to just develop the idea or do the follow-up? To become a great entrepreneur, you need both.