{"id":27459,"date":"2025-12-19T08:42:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/?p=27459"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:42:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:42:25","slug":"385946","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/385946\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Neglect the Follow-Through"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Nichols<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all in the follow-through! If you were to Google the definition of follow-through, it will come up saying \u201cthe continuing of an action or task to its conclusion.\u201d In management, I have found the number one reason someone or something will fail is due to the lack of the last step, which is the follow-through. Many of us have great ideas, and we know how to bring those ideas to life and start the process of enhancing our business, but we fail anyway. It\u2019s not because the employee didn\u2019t have your same vision or that the process went wrong \u2013 it just wasn\u2019t completed; the follow-through process was skipped.<\/p>\n

Accountability<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having a proper follow-through process when working with your staff will improve accountability. Here is an example of how a special can work without having proper accountability. Let\u2019s say your average EFT right now is at $25 and you are looking to improve that average EFT to $35 with the members you currently have. You spend the time and resources and come up with a program that will give current members the option to upgrade or add an additional membership to their account. Your advertising and marketing is spot on and you anticipate a great response. You spend the time training your staff on how to sell the upgrades and additional memberships, with a goal of goal of selling 100 additional upgrades and memberships by the week\u2019s end. As the week goes on, you see that you aren\u2019t selling nearly the amount you thought. At the end of the week, you sold only 25 new memberships. You figure the special didn\u2019t work, not knowing that you missed the last step: the follow-through.<\/p>\n

This special was there, and marketing, advertising, and training were completed, but the follow through was not. As an owner or manager, you know that you need to reach 25 or more memberships a day. So, what went wrong? Nobody on your team pushed the promotion as they should have because they knew they didn\u2019t have to. When you have follow though, you are going to talk with your employees each day or week and go through their performance. This daily or weekly meeting is crucial for running successful programs.<\/p>\n

If you want your employees to succeed, you need to set up requirements. Still using the example above, if you told each employee the day they work that they need to sell five upgrades or an additional membership, then you have something to hold them accountable for. During your daily or weekly meeting, you can then reward or reprimand that employee, illustrating why these meetings are so important. The follow-through meeting is easy to do but also easy to skip.<\/p>\n

Examples of How to Run the Follow-Through<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are some great examples of how to run a successful follow-through program:<\/p>\n