They Threw the Ball Back
Sixty doors. Sixty handshakes. And I dropped most of those balls.
This fall I’ve done over 60 cold walk-ins for my Meet & Greets. I shook hands. I left my brochure. I posted a shout-out.
And with most of them? I never followed up.
I left them as orphans.
All that work to get in the door, and then I let it die on the doorstep. That’s not a marketing problem. That’s a catching problem.
The pirate who named my problem
Then last week on my business coach call, we learned a framework with a name that sounds like a pirate clearing his throat.
AARRR.
I laughed. Then I stopped laughing, because it described my business.
A Silicon Valley investor named Dave McClure came up with it. He was watching companies get excited about social media likes while their businesses quietly bled out. So he broke the customer’s journey into five stages:
Acquisition. Activation. Retention. Referral. Revenue.
Most of us only see two of those. Marketing gets them in. Sales closes them. Done.
But there are five. And the business you’re losing is hiding in the ones you aren’t watching.
Let’s make it a restaurant
Acquisition: Someone sees your sign on the highway and pulls in.
Activation: The first meal is great. Someone says hello and refills the coffee. They think, “Oh, this place is good.”
Retention: They come back next Tuesday.
Referral: They bring their brother-in-law.
Revenue: They book the back room for the family Christmas party.
You can have the best highway sign in Saskatchewan. If nobody says hello at the table, that customer is gone.
You threw the ball. They threw it back.
Think about your last social media post. Someone liked it. Someone commented “Love this!”
That’s them catching your ball and throwing it back.
And what did you do? If you’re like most of us, nothing. The ball hit the ground and rolled off into nowhere.
So why don’t we catch it?
We tell ourselves, “I don’t want to bug them.” We don’t want to be that person. The pushy one. The pest. The salesperson everyone dodges at the grocery store.
But flip it around. What if what you do could really help them? I’ve watched clients triple their income. I’ve heard people tell stories of how one product finally fixed a health problem they’d lived with for years. If you believe in what you offer, then not reaching out isn’t polite. It’s withholding.
Somewhere along the way we decided it’s the customer’s job to follow up with us. That’s backwards. It’s our job.
And while we’re being honest...
Part of why follow-up feels salesy is that we talk about the wrong thing. We talk about our product. The package. The features. The hours.
Nobody cares about the drill. They care about the hole in the wall.
So when you follow up, don’t lead with what you sell. Lead with what changes for them.
What follow-up actually is
Follow-up isn’t “Just checking in to see if you’re ready to buy.” It’s:
Saying hi. A real, human hello.
Bringing value. An article, a tip, an introduction to someone they should know.
Being seen elsewhere. They spot you at the trade show, on their feed, at the chamber breakfast.
Keeping the conversation open instead of letting it hit a dead end.
It’s a relationship, not a pitch.
🔧 Tool of the Week: Catch the Ball (20 minutes, today)
Open your last three social posts. Write down every name that liked or commented.
Send each person a short, personal message. Not a pitch. Something like: “Thanks for the like on my post about ___! I noticed you ___. How’s business going this fall?”
Pick one “orphan.” Someone you met and never followed up with: a trade show contact, a business card on your desk, a coffee you never booked. Reach out with something useful, focused on their results.
Name an owner. Who in your business catches the ball from now on? If the answer is “whoever remembers,” the answer is nobody. Write down a name.
Then do it again next week.
As for me? I’m going back through all 60+ Meet & Greets this week. Those orphans are getting a phone call. Next week, I’ll tell you exactly how many picked up, and what happened.
We work so hard to get seen. Let’s not drop the ball once they throw it back.
Until next week,
Penny Nilsen
Nilsen Business Coaching & Consulting
Clarity. Strategy. Results.
P.S. Do the Catch the Ball check today, then hit reply and tell me your number. How many balls landed in your glove this week?
