Aly Samaha | The Follow-Up King

They called me the follow-up madman first

I was on a floor where a sale pings on a board when it lands. Somebody looked at how many touches I'd put on one deal and said “I’m not quite the king of follow-up.” I said “Oh, is that my name?” Everyone said yes. It stuck.

I love closing. I don't love spending ten hours a day on the phone. I wanted more out of every opportunity without grinding all day, so I stopped writing off the quiet ones.

It wasn't even me who noticed I was doing it. It was the owners and the managers.

They're the ones who feel it. A closer can always go back to the next inbound lead. An owner can't always afford to buy the next one. That's why I ended up pointing this at their old conversations instead of chasing new ones.

Four things an owner says out loud

Two closers carry the number. The rest sit near half quota, and you know which is which by Wednesday.

There are leads in GHL from March with two attempts on them. Not because anyone is lazy. Because the phone rang with something newer, and it rings every day.

A proposal went out three weeks ago, got a yes on the call, and never got billed.

You bought a tool that was supposed to handle all this. It sent something that didn't sound like you, so you turned it off.

Every one of those is the same thing. A pile of people it's nobody's job to go back for, and you can count it. Nine quick questions are enough for me to tell you which one is costing you the most, inside a day.

Spending more every quarter to stand still

The reflex, when the number is short, is to go back to the top of the funnel and buy more awareness. It's the lever everyone knows how to pull, and it's the one that got more expensive.

Meanwhile the expensive part has already happened. The lead was paid for. The call was booked. The proposal went out. Somebody said yes and never got billed. Somebody bought once and nobody ever sold to them again. You've already paid for all of it. All of it is sitting there where you left it, and nobody has been back.

It's all still there. It just never gets touched, because the next booked call is always more urgent.

Your closers get the same commission on a six week old deal as they do on a fresh one, so of course they take the fresh one. Nobody on your floor is doing anything wrong here. They're doing the job you hired them for.

It's bigger than you think, and nobody owns it

Ask an owner how many people took two calls in the last twelve months and never said yes or no. He won't have it. Nobody has it. There's a dashboard for joins, for bookings, for cost per lead. There's no line on a P and L called money you didn't go back for.

Enquired

They filled something in, asked a question, or applied, and never got a straight answer either way.

Took a call

They showed up, had a real conversation, and didn't sign that day.

Got a proposal

You priced it. Sometimes they said yes on the call and nobody ever billed them.

Went quiet

No refusal, no decision. The thread just stopped, and the next lead came in.

Every owner I've run this on guessed low. One told me forty. I pulled the list and it was closer to four hundred, and he'd already paid for all of them.

Four thousand dead conversations, about a million dollars

An eight figure company brought me in to train their entire closing floor, with the CEO in the room. Then I pointed the system at the conversations nobody had time to work. Four thousand of them, sitting in the CRM behind that day's calls.

Their floor had been getting about five percent out of that list. The system came back at forty percent, the highest that company had ever recorded on it.

Sixteen hundred people answered. Twenty closers can work a fraction of that in a day, so they worked what they could reach: 160 booked calls, 50 closes, average deal around twenty thousand, about a million dollars in cash. The rest of those replies are still sitting in that CRM.

They closed just under a third of the calls, higher than they close cold traffic, because these were people who had already talked to them once.

They didn't buy a single new lead to do it. One list, worked once, on a floor that already knew how to sell.

The company isn't named here, on purpose.

Message from the chief executive after the closing floor ran the system

The chief executive, in their own internal channel, during the run.

What it looks like on somebody else's floor

The same discipline, run by closers inside offers that were already selling. Screenshots as they came in, then the men on camera.

Rafay

Conversion stage. $30K in one week from conversations already in the pipeline, 10 of the 11. Another $17K over the three weeks after.

Josh

Conversion stage. $8,339 inside 72 hours, 4 of 5 calls closed, roughly $20K in the stretch that followed.

In their own words, unscripted

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Rafay

On the $30K week, and the $17K after it

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Josh

On the $8,339 inside 72 hours

Step one costs nothing. Nine quick questions, your own figures, and a straight answer inside a day on what your quiet pipeline is worth.

Tell me what my quiet pipeline is worth

The record, in numbers

$50K to $800K

Monthly revenue as COO of Scaling Group, Beverly Hills, at margins above 70%.

3 to 300+

High ticket clients in under eleven months, average client investment above $30,000.

$2.37M

Collected personally over two and a half years.

5% to 40%

Reply rate on four thousand conversations already sitting in one company's CRM. Their record on that list.

About $1M

Cash from those replies, worked by twenty of their closers. No new leads, no new ad spend.

$70K

Cash collected in one week, personal record. Part of $1.17M in thirteen months on one floor, 30 percent close rate, 75 percent paid in full.

$60K

First week on a new floor. $400K in seven months at 30 to 50 percent close against a 20 percent KPI.

75%

Paid in full, on a $10K to $50K offer. The rate that decides whether cash collected is real.

Highest

Cash collected per scheduled call on every floor I've worked. Revenue divided by opportunity, which is the only number that measures what comes out of a pipeline you were handed.

Every number on this page is mine or was recorded on a floor I ran. Nothing here is an average, an industry benchmark or a projection. I carried a bag on the floors I later ran, which is why I'm willing to be this specific about them.

What I actually am

Most people you can hire will tell you the money is there. I go and collect it, and the bulk of what I earn is a share of what lands.

What usually gets hired

A consultant who diagnoses and leaves you a deck. An agency that sends more traffic at the same problem. A closer you rent by the hour who only works the calls you hand him.

What I do instead

I've owned operations, follow-up, fulfillment and sales in the same building at the same time. I find the money, then I stay and help you collect it.

I've done this job from three seats in the same building.

On the phone. I was the closer with the highest cash collected per scheduled call on every floor I've worked. That never came from being the best talker in the room. It came from working the conversations everybody else had already moved past.

Over a floor. I trained twenty closers with the CEO sitting in the room, then pointed the system at four thousand conversations already sitting in their CRM. It came back with that company's record on the list and about a million dollars in cash, with no new leads and no new ad spend.

Over a company. Two years as COO of Scaling Group in Beverly Hills, from fifty thousand a month to more than eight hundred thousand, at margins above seventy percent. Acquisition, sales and fulfillment in the same building at the same time, which is why I can tell a sales problem from a handoff problem, and why I know a bottleneck in delivery costs you referrals you'll never see leave.

I wasn't buying more leads that year. I just stopped losing the ones already in the building.

Aly Samaha on the front cover of Ultimate Achievers Magazine, issue 100

Seen and heard

Ultimate Achievers Magazine, front cover and feature, issue 100. ultimateachieversmagazine.com
Success Profiles Radio, a top 100 business podcast.

How it works

Three steps, in order, and you can stop after any one of them.

Free

Your quiet pipeline, counted

Nine quick questions from you, no call. Inside a day I write back with a figure for your quiet pipeline in your own figures, and the first message I'd send to reopen them. If it's too small, too cold or too cheap to be worth working, I say so in the same email and that's the end of it. The moment you send it, the Follow-Up Vault opens: the four message Re-Open Sequence that pulled a 40 percent reply rate on four thousand dead conversations, 33 swipe lines, the objection scripts for the seven ways people stall, deferral templates, the decision tree and the pipeline tracker. Every script I run, free, nothing held back for a paid version.

20% of what lands

The First Twenty

You don't export anything. Give me twenty minutes on a screen share and I pull the twenty warmest myself, or send the export if you'd rather. Inside 48 hours of that I write to all twenty by hand, in your voice. Whatever comes back is yours. I take 20 percent of cash collected on those twenty, nothing else. If nothing lands you owe nothing and keep the twenty messages.

Start with the twenty you care about least if you'd rather. Nothing goes out that you haven't read, and nothing sends until you say yes.

$2,500 setup, then 20%

The 30-Day Recovery

The whole quiet pipeline, worked by me for thirty days. You approve every word and it sends from your inbox. Every call that comes back, I take, and I close it. If the first thirty days don't collect at least three times the setup, I keep working the quiet pipeline free until they do. If a client refunds, I return my share.

You should see the first replies inside 72 hours, a booked call in the first week, and cash inside two weeks. Built for 300 or more stalled conversations, a ticket of $10,000 and up or $2,500 a month on a six month minimum, and somebody on your side who can take a booked call.

Step one costs nothing. Nine quick questions, and a straight answer inside a day on whether there's money worth going after.

Tell me what my quiet pipeline is worth

Why this isn't the tool you turned off

You've probably already bought software that promised to work your old conversations. It sent something that didn't sound like you, so you turned it off. You were right to turn it off.

I read every message before it goes

Not a template with a first name dropped in. I read the actual thread, work out what happened, and write the next message for that person. At my volume I can do that. An agency pushing thousands of these can't, so nobody does.

It sends from your closer, in your closer's voice

Nothing goes out under my name or from a tool. The person who had the conversation sends the message, so the buyer sees the same human they were already talking to.

It gets collected, not just counted

A consultant hands you a deck and leaves. I write the messages, take the calls that come back, and close them. You aren't buying a document, you're buying the money that arrives.

Who this is for

A good fit

High ticket offers, roughly $10,000 and above, or $2,500 a month on a six month minimum
Revenue already happening, not a pre launch idea
A list, a pipeline or a customer base with history in it
An owner who can approve a change without taking it to a committee
Coaching, consulting, education, agency, professional services, done for you

Not a fit

Pre revenue, or no data to look at yet
Low ticket volume businesses where the real fix is media buying
Owners who want a report and won't act on it
Anyone looking for a closer to rent by the hour

Here's what that looks like in your business. Nine quick questions, free, no call. Inside a day you get a figure for what your quiet pipeline is worth and the first message I'd send to reopen them.

Tell me what my quiet pipeline is worth

The questions everyone asks

What does it cost?

The count is free and the First Twenty costs nothing up front: 20 percent of cash collected on those twenty, and if nothing lands you owe nothing and keep the messages. The 30-Day Recovery is a $2,500 setup, then 20 percent of cash collected, with a guarantee: if the first thirty days don't collect three times the setup, I keep working free until they do. If a client refunds or charges back I return my share.

What do I actually walk away with from the free count?

A number, and a message. What your quiet pipeline is plausibly worth at your ticket, whether it's worth working at all, and the first message I'd send to reopen them. It's an estimate off three figures and I say so in the email, and it's still more than most owners have ever had put on this. You keep it whether or not you ever pay me anything.

What if you look and there's nothing there?

Then I tell you in the email, before you've spent anything. That happens, and it's a useful answer. Usually it means you haven't got enough people in the door yet, and what you need is somebody who buys traffic. I'll say so and tell you who to call.

How much of my time does this take?

Nine quick questions to start. After that, twenty minutes on a screen share, then reading the messages I write and saying yes or no. About an hour a week for the thirty days, and none of it's meetings.

Is this just follow up?

Close, but the word undersells it. A reminder is a reminder. That's all most people ever send. I read what actually happened in each conversation, write the one message that answers the specific thing that person was worried about, and then take the call and close it. Most people never get past the reminder.

Will you sell to my list or talk to my clients?

Every message sends from your inbox, in your closer's voice, and you approve every word before it goes. The calls that come back, I take myself. Nothing goes out under my name and nothing goes out that you haven't read.

Who actually does the work?

I do. There is no team behind me and no junior analyst writing your messages. That's why I work three of these at a time. I write every message by hand and I take every call myself, so three is the honest number.

Find out what your quiet pipeline is worth.

Nine quick questions. I count the people who enquired in the last twelve months and never bought, put a figure on them in your own numbers, and write the first message I'd send to reopen them. Inside a day, by email.

If there's nothing there, that's a useful answer and it costs you nothing.

And it gets colder. The ones from March are harder to reopen than the ones from last month.

I work three of these at a time, because I write every message by hand.

Tell me what my quiet pipeline is worth