This following-up business.
Be curious about what people are thinking.
Move away from the belief that we are troubling those we are following up with.
Seven words sit at the heart of that instruction, and they are worth slowing down for before anything else: “be curious about what people are thinking.” Not curious about whether they are ready to buy. Not curious about how to move the conversation toward a decision. Curious about what they are thinking. About their situation, their challenges, their timing, their world.
That distinction is the reframe.
What Dale Carnegie understood before neuroscience confirmed it #
“If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.”
Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936. That line has survived nearly ninety years of management theory, sales methodology, and communication research not because it is quotable but because it is precisely true.
What neuroscience has since confirmed is the mechanism behind it.
Effective listening is far more complex than simply hearing sounds. Hearing is passive. Listening is active. Genuine listening requires coordination between multiple brain regions involved in attention and emotional regulation; the prefrontal cortex sustaining attention, the limbic system interpreting emotional meaning. When a brain becomes overwhelmed or distracted, listening quality declines. We hear words without absorbing meaning. We respond without understanding. We become physically present but psychologically absent.
The person on the other end of a follow-up call can detect this. Not always consciously, and not always in a way they could articulate. But they feel the difference between someone who is genuinely present and someone who is waiting for their turn to pitch.
Research published in 2024 found something even more striking. Active listening: genuinely attentive, engaged, curious listening, produces interpersonal brain synchronisation between the listener and the speaker. Two brains, in a genuine conversation, literally begin to coordinate their activity. The synchronisation is measurable, it is associated with meaningful emotional connection, and it does not occur during passive or performative listening.
Carnegie described the phenomenon in 1936. The brain scanning technology to observe it arrived ninety years later. The finding is the same.
Here’s the reframe #
Most people who struggle with follow-up are not struggling with the process. They have the list, the calendar, the call-back rota. They know who to call and when.
What they struggle with is the belief that they are troubling the people they contact.
We have explored this belief across several pieces in this Hub; the impostor phenomenon that generates it, the Cornell University research showing that people systematically underestimate others’ willingness to be approached, the Gartner finding that most buyers are already 70% through their evaluation before engaging anyone directly. The evidence against the troubling-people belief is overwhelming.
But the most powerful reframe is not by looking for new proof or facts, but by shifting our fundamental attitude and approach.
When we approach a follow-up call with the genuine intention of understanding what the other person is thinking; their current situation, their challenges, their timing, the things occupying their attention right now, we are not troubling them. We are offering them something that is increasingly rare in a world of automated sequences and templated outreach: a real conversation with a real person who is genuinely curious about their world.
The follow-up is not the mountain. The mountain is the belief that it is.
What to do instead #
Reframe the thinking. Not as a one-time act but as a habit of mind that precedes every contact made.
Before picking up the phone, replace one question with another. Instead of “I hope I’m not bothering them,” try “I’m curious what they’re thinking about right now.” The shift from self-consciousness to genuine curiosity changes the entire quality of the conversation before it has begun.
Then solve problems and challenges. The prospect sitting with a business challenge they haven’t resolved is not hoping you won’t call. They are hoping someone will call who understands their situation and might be able to help. The follow-up call is not an imposition; it is a response to a need that hasn’t yet been voiced.
Put minds at ease. Not by providing premature reassurance, but by being the kind of presence in a conversation that makes someone feel heard. Attachment theory suggests that feeling heard and understood is a foundational element of emotional safety. People are often less concerned with whether someone agrees with them and more concerned with whether someone understands. That understanding begins with listening.
And then have some great conversations. Not great by the metrics of leads generated or decisions advanced, but great in the human sense; honest, curious, unhurried conversations between two people who are both present.
Why being interested is more powerful than being interesting #
The follow-up culture most people have been trained in focuses on being compelling. Crafting the perfect opening line. Developing a persuasive value proposition. Being interesting enough to hold attention for thirty seconds before the prospect finds a reason to end the call.
All of that has its place. But it pales against the simple, radical act of being interested in the other person’s situation.
When you ask thoughtful questions and listen to the answers, something remarkable happens. They begin to articulate their own challenges, their own timing, their own reasons why the conversation might be valuable. They sell themselves on the potential of working together; not because you have cleverly manipulated them, but because in explaining their situation to someone who is genuinely listening, they have clarified their own thinking.
The person who makes a prospect feel heard, in a world full of people trying to sell to them, earns a place in their thinking that no amount of clever pitching could manufacture.
That is not a technique. It cannot be faked well enough to sustain itself over the arc of a relationship.
It is attitude and approach. And in a world of relentless pitching and automated sequences, genuine curiosity has become the quietest and most powerful competitive advantage available.
It is time to reframe our thinking. Solve problems and challenges. Put minds at ease. And have some great conversations.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@richard-bulldomican
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
