When I talk about Follow-Ups, I mean the words you say after you say hello. But only top-drawer sales masters really use these techniques. Why not borrow them?

You know the phrase "the sale is in the follow-up"?

Well, landing your prospect is in the follow-up too. A good series of follow-up lines, that you've practiced and have ready when you talk about your business, can create an invisible sales funnel that draws your listener further and further into wanting to know and work with you.

A great follow-up series can convert them from "mildly curious" to "Can I call you next week?"

There are at least six different follow-ups.

Here are three ways a Headline Follow-Up can capture more clients.

(What's a Headline Follow-Up? A bullet-point, only you're speaking it instead of writing it.)

1. Make the headline about the results you produce for your clients, a secret they don't know, or a fact that is tantalizing and provocative.

For example, after you've delivered a knock-out message about the results your service or product delivers, and someone asks, "How do you do that?" just steal one of these 4 follow-ups and reword it to fit your business.

- "All the techniques in the world won't teach you how to sell if you don't know the biggest secret to sales."

- "I've been in business for 15 years and there's one secret to selling that nobody teaches you."

- "Believe it or not, no one actually buys your service."

- "There's one simple word that can lose potential clients fast. Once you've lost them, it's virtually impossible to ever get them back."

These are all designed to provoke curiosity and a bit of anxiety. But they won't work if you don't stop talking.

2. Deliver your follow-up, then stop talking. Wait for their response. This takes practice. Most of us can't stand silence. But silence builds intrigue, mystery and a little user-friendly tension.

Why? In your silence, it feels to your listener that you are withholding something valuable. You appear to have self-control, and therefore you appear to have power.

In your silence, you are allowing the curiosity and tension level of your listener to rise. This is good. In order for your listener to ask you for more information, they need to be at a certain level of healthy tension.

If you want to attract more clients and customers, withstand your own anxiety and allow theirs to rise. The more curious they are, the more anxious they are to hear more.

You can watch this happen in less than 5 minutes.

But this will not work if you give in, soothe them, and gabble on about your business. Then their level of tension decreases, and so does their interest in you. (Research backs this up.)

If you want to know how good you are at holding silence, tell a joke. How long can you stretch out the pause before the punch line? If you're really good, you'll tease your audience so that they'll burst out laughing when you deliver the goods. Why? The laughter is a sign of how much tension you've built.

3. You don't have to answer their questions immediately. This is an old tip from PR. If they say "Tell me more," resist the urge to tell them just yet. You can answer with another even more tantalizing secret, or little-known fact, or even a question.

Build the intrigue! It takes guts to do this. Most of us dutifully and politely answer questions, adding a little to try and make our service or product more interesting. Yes, you can and will give A FEW solid results - not facts - results about your service or product, but build the intrigue first. You will be delighted with the results.

I was studying with sales super-star many years ago, and I always felt like there was never enough time when I hung up the phone. I actually felt the anxiety rise in my throat. Finally I asked her, "How come I always want more of what you have to say?" She laughed and said, "That's sales!" And hung up.

Try it. It works.

Copyright 2008 Ann Convery. All Rights Reserved.