Ryan Dohrn breaks down his "polite persistence" follow-up cadence: contact prospects every three business days (Monday, Thursday, Tuesday pattern) to balance persistence without annoying them. He tested daily through weekly intervals and found three days optimal. He ties this to his broader "Rule of Three" philosophy: three-word subject lines, three-sentence messages, three proposal options.
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, here comes our next question. This is from Brian in North Carolina. Hey Brian, just one state away. We should get together, hang out and talk sales, right? All right, Brian has this question. Ryan, you talk about polite persistence on your podcast and in your blogs. Can you give me more detail on the pattern of every 3 business days and why you think that it works? So Brian, I like to be politely persistent persistent because I believe polite persistence produces positive profit. And this is what I mean by that. You want to be persistent in sales, but you don't want to be so persistent that you're annoying. So what I did is did a pretty long exhaustive test on when did I get better response rates. Was it when I followed up every day, every 2 days, every 3 days, every 4 days, every 5 days? What was the circumstance? And here's what I found out. Once a week, checking in with a customer just wasn't generating any results for me. Doing it every day was not generating results for me. Doing it every 2 weeks, every 2 days wasn't generating a good response for me. So what I settled on and what I tested and what seems to work for me is every 3 business days. Okay, so let's talk about it. If I reach out to somebody on Monday with a voicemail and an email, I'm not gonna reach out on Tuesday or Wednesday, but I'm gonna reach out again on Thursday. Then, because I'm gonna do every 3 business days, I'm not gonna reach out on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. It's gonna be Tuesday because I'm worried about every 3 business days. What I found is, and worked with a lot of my clients on this, is that every 3 business days is just persistent enough to move the needle Without being so persistent that you come across as being annoying. What I found out is every week or every 2 weeks, it just was too long of a gap, and so you were easily deletable or easily forgettable. And that's why I settled on the 3 business days pattern. Now, one of the things that's also important for me to share with you, Brian, is that I truly believe everything worth a darn in nature works in groupings of 3s as well. That's why if you follow my advice a lot, 3 words in the subject line, 3 sentences max, Okay. I also do 3 options inside of every proposal that I'm doing. When I'm giving success stories, I present 3 options and 3 success stories, 3 optional success stories. And then when I'm prospecting, what I'm doing is I'm focusing in on what it looks like every 3 business days. I truly do believe that the rule of 3 applies in life, it applies in nature, and then, Brian, it also applies in sales. So hopefully that polite persistence example gives you an example that will also be able to carry through to your prospecting process. As well. All right, friends, keep your questions coming. ryan@ryandohrn.com. Never forget, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy, friends. It's a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. All right, we'll see you next week.
