Your brain is currently sabotaging your business. Politely. With excellent manners. And a really compelling argument for why you should clean the kitchen first.
If you're struggling to stick to following up with people who've expressed an interest in working with you, it's not because you’re lazy. You're not "bad at admin." You're not missing some magical discipline gene that other coaches were born with.
You're up against ten thousand years of evolution, three million emails, and a brain that genuinely believes that endlessly scrolling Facebook is keeping you alive. Stick with me and by the end of this post, I'll show you the exact moment your brain hijacks your follow-ups, and the surprisingly small thing that makes it stop.
You're most likely resisting, because your brain is doing exactly what it evolved to do. i.e. Conserving energy by defaulting to familiar patterns, instead of spending energy working out something new. And that is why follow-up feels so impossibly hard.
Let’s start with a reframe. You know that feeling when you have ignored emails sitting in your inbox. Important emails asking for a quote or for more info about your packages. But instead of sitting down to reply, you find yourself reading a quick newsletter, or checking Facebook for the tenth time today, or deciding you need to clean the floor before you get started.
It may seem like procrastination. But it's actually neurology. And once you stop fighting your neurology and start working with it, follow-up stops feeling like a chore, and starts feeling like something you just do.
Your Brain is Lying to You About Follow-Ups
Here's what's actually going on under the hood. Your brain is a power-hungry diva — it gobbles roughly 20% of your daily energy despite being about 2% of your body weight. So to keep itself fed, it spends most of the day looking for the cheapest possible thing to do next.
A 2025 study published in Psychology & Health found that 65% of daily behaviours are triggered by habit, and a staggering 88% are executed habitually. In other words we’re largely running on autopilot.
When you try to do something new, like working out what to say to potential clients, your brain has to work harder. It has to engage the prefrontal cortex in a more deliberate, effortful way. This is the same mechanism that kept your ancestors alive. It conserved energy so they could run away from tigers when they needed to (or chase them if they were hungry). The problem is that what kept you alive 2 million years ago, is now stopping you doing your follow-ups.
Following up means decisions. What do I write? Do I reference our last call? Do I offer a discount? Should I attach the PDF or link it? Do I sound desperate if I follow up twice in a week? Is it weird to send this at 9pm? By the time your brain has run that gauntlet, it has already decided that doing literally anything else would be more pleasant. So you "just quickly check Insta." And another day passes. And another. And by the time you write back, Lisa has hired someone else and is already three weeks into her programme.
But the thing I want you to understand is that you're not avoiding following up because you lack discipline. You are avoiding it because your brain has run a tiny cost-benefit analysis behind your back and decided that hoovering the kitchen floor is, neurologically speaking, the better investment. Your brain is doing its job with terrifying efficiency.
Forcing yourself doesn’t really work. The sensible thing to ask is: "How do I make follow-ups feel like the path of least resistance; instead of being the thing I procrastinate on every time."
That's what we're solving today.
Your System Is Making It Worse
You know you need a system. So you built one - maybe in AirTable or Notion. Columns for everything you might need, automations to remind you when things need attention.
You were all excited at first, but gradually it dawned on you: The system takes longer to update, than the follow ups do. And that’s why you’re now avoiding it.
Spreadsheets demand you to be at your desk typing. CRMs demand that you learn how they work and fill out 17 fields every time you do something. They both need energy you don’t have at the end of a long day.
But if your business is anything like mine, then business doesn’t always happen when you’re sitting at your desk. You get a DM while you’re out grocery shopping; an SMS wakes you up first thing; you remember about the quote you need to send while you’re out walking the dog.
Aside from sleeping with your phone on silent, what you really need is a system that works wherever you are.
Talk. Don’t Type.
We’re building WalkTalk for this. It’s a voice-first lead tracker that replaces the spreadsheet with you talking into your phone.
When a lead comes in, you open the WalkTalk app and talk! Give it the person’s name, what they need, where they came from. A few seconds, and you can walk while you do it.
Your brain doesn’t resist, because all it takes is a quick voice memo.
You can even tag them with your voice: Hot (they’re keen), Warm (met them at a networking event), or Cold (no rush).
Add when you want to follow up; and the system reminds you. And if you don’t know when to follow up, it will even suggest what’s best.
The Habit Loop
Two weeks in. You capture a lead while making lunch. Four seconds. You don’t even think about it. It’s routine now.
Friday 2pm: Get back to the 3 people highlighted for follow up today. Review your notes first to remember who they are. You moved your follow-up from effort to autopilot.
You didn’t need to motivate yourself. You didn’t need to reward yourself (although you can of course eat that square of dark chocolate if you want)!
It’s an easy fix, and one that will get your follow ups done, and money flowing into your business.
Connection, Not Conversion
Some coaches teach you to blast generic sequences. But we feel that’s closer to spam, than the sort of connection WalkTalk users value.
So we haven’t put generic templates into WalkTalk. We let you follow up with your words in your own way, and then quickly tap a button on the Today’s Focus screen to say you’ve done it. Simple.
WalkTalk handles the structure. And you handle the human stuff.
This is nurture at its best. Follow up without the ‘ick’.
What’s Broken? Let’s Fix It!
Take a look at your business. What is your biggest problem? Is it:
- Leads scattered everywhere: DMs, emails, post-it notes? That’s broken capture.
- A spreadsheet with 200 names and no idea who to get back to first? That’s broken categorisation.
- No protected time to do your follow ups? That’s a broken schedule.
Fix capture first. Put everything in one place. Use WalkTalk if you like, and remove the typing.
Then fix the timing. I like Friday afternoons. I don’t take client calls then - it’s my dedicated follow up and quote time.
You don’t need more discipline. You need follow-up to feel like the path of least resistance.
Life happens. WalkTalk it.
WalkTalk is launching soon. Enter your first three leads before you finish your morning coffee. No spreadsheets. Just talk, be reminded, follow up.
