This following-up business. It’s mission critical.
Most people who struggle with following up don’t struggle because they lack the time, the system, or the script. They struggle because of a belief that sits underneath all of those things: quiet, persistent, and rarely examined directly.
The belief that they are troubling the people they contact.
This piece is about that belief. Where it comes from, why it persists despite all evidence to the contrary, and the mental reset that dissolves it; not by pushing through it each time, but by removing its foundation entirely.
Where the belief comes from #
The feeling that following up makes us a nuisance has a psychological name and a clinical history.
In 1978, psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes identified what they called the impostor phenomenon; the persistent internal experience of feeling fraudulent despite objective evidence of competence. People experiencing it attribute their successes to external factors like luck or timing rather than to genuine ability and carry an ongoing fear of being exposed as inadequate.
The impostor phenomenon is not a rare condition affecting only the insecure or the inexperienced. Research suggests prevalence rates of between 44% and 70% across professional populations. It affects high achievers as readily as those who are new to their field. And it manifests in business development in a very specific way.
The reluctant follow-up caller doesn’t consciously think “I am a fraud.” They think “I don’t want to bother them.” But underneath that thought is an assumption that reveals the same mechanism: that the person being called will see through the contact, find it presumptuous, and judge the caller for making it.
That assumption; that your follow-up is an imposition rather than a service, is the false belief that needs dismantling.
What curiosity does #
Be curious.
That instruction, which opens the original post this piece is built on, is more psychologically precise than it might appear. Because curiosity is specifically the state that interrupts the impostor cycle.
The impostor cycle works like this: anxiety about a task leads to either over-preparation or avoidance, followed by temporary relief when the task is completed or deferred, followed by recurring self-doubt. The cycle repeats. The task, in this case, the follow-up call, gets harder rather than easier because avoidance reinforces the belief that it was the right response.
Curiosity breaks this cycle by redirecting attention outward. Instead of “what will they think of me for calling?” which is the impostor’s inward focus, curiosity asks “what are they actually thinking about right now?” The shift from self-consciousness to genuine interest in the other person is not just philosophically sound. It is neurologically different. A curious mind is in an approach state rather than an avoidance state, and the approach state is where effective human connection happens.
The mental reset #
After the reset, following up is no longer a mountain to climb.
How can it be, when what we are doing is:
Continuing a conversation: to establish trust and build a relationship. Not starting something from scratch. Not intruding where we were not invited. Continuing something that began when the first contact was made and that both parties implicitly agreed to extend.
Answering questions: to demonstrate genuine interest in potential clients’ requirements. The prospect who received our outreach has questions. Some of those questions are conscious; they are evaluating our proposition against their current situation. Some are unconscious; they are forming a view of who we are and whether we are someone worth knowing. The follow-up call answers both.
Addressing concerns: to show commitment and help them find a solution. Research from Cornell University’s Professor Vanessa Bohns confirms that people systematically underestimate others’ willingness to help. The prospect sitting with a business challenge is more likely to welcome a thoughtful follow-up and far more likely to welcome this than they are to proactively reach out themselves.
Winning new business now and in the future. Not every follow-up produces an immediate result. Most don’t. But the relationship built through consistent, curious, genuinely helpful contact is a commercial asset that compounds over time. The business won in month nine was earned in months one through eight.
All of this based around one thing: willingness to support them, solve their challenges, and put their minds at ease.
The reframe that switches things around #
The false belief; that following up is an imposition, rests on a specific misreading of the situation. It assumes that your expertise and your service are things the prospect would prefer not to be reminded of. That your interest in their success is unwelcome. That the relationship is better served by silence than by contact.
The evidence points consistently in the opposite direction. Proactive contact from someone who genuinely understands your challenges and wants to help address them is not an intrusion. It is a service. The person who calls before the problem has become urgent is not bothering you. They are the person you will call first when the urgency arrives.
The impostor phenomenon, left unchallenged, costs businesses real commercial opportunity. Not because the expertise isn’t there. Not because the service isn’t valuable. But because the false belief about troubling people prevents the contact that would have led to the conversation that would have led to the relationship.
The reset is this: follow-up is not about you. It is about them.
When you make that shift fully; when the curiosity about their situation genuinely outweighs the self-consciousness about your own, the mountain disappears. What remains is a conversation worth having, with a person who deserves the chance to benefit from what you offer.
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/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
