There’s plenty written about “showing up” and increasing your luck surface area. It’s a great first step to getting what you want because if you don’t put in the effort, you can’t expect to get anything in return.

That said, people miss out on the next important step – “following-up.”

Let say that you sent an email to someone for a job and they didn’t reply so you assumed that they hired someone else. Think about the million other possibilities that could’ve happened. What if they were on vacation? What if they saw your email, but they were planning to reply to you later and forgot? What if they deleted the email by accident? The list goes on.

Following-up is key to staying “top of mind” of the person you’re trying to reach.

Let’s say you asked someone for advice and it helped you get what you wanted. Most people drop the ball here (myself included in the past). They don’t update the person on their success. Not only are you ruining your reputation, you’re also ruining a chance to create more opportunities for yourself.

It doesn’t take too much effort to follow-up, but it certainly increases your chances of success.

Remember you’re usually not the most important priority in everyone’s life, you just need to give them a slight nudge to be one :)