The Most Effective Tactic For Following Up
After meeting a new contact at a networking event, everybody knows it’s important to follow up and to do it quickly. The key to this simple effort is to do it in a way that achieves the desired result. And that is to arrange a meeting and establish a new networking relationship.
Here is the situation. You were at event, which could be a private networking group or a large function and you met a great person. You enjoyed speaking with them and you feel they could be a great networking colleague. They could be one of the three types of networking capital, a Connector, a Center of influence or a Hidden gem. Either way, you want to meet this person again. The conventional wisdom offers good advice but misses a key point. Everybody agrees that a follow up email should include the following:
- Follow up within 24 hours
- Refer to the meeting event and date
- Refer to something specific that came up in the conversation, especially a mutual interest.
- Include additional information to follow up on the initial conversation
- Suggest a plan to follow up
Since your goal is to establish a connection with this person, I think it’s extremely important to mention how you can help the other person. An effective networker always maintains a “you” focus in communicating in person and in writing. The focus is not about you, its about your new potential networking partner. In the follow up email, it’s a great idea to include a suggestion about how you can help them. There are variations of how this can be done, but simply include something like this, “I want to learn more about you and share my thoughts about how I can help you grow your business”. You must mean this and be able to help the person with good connections and referrals.
Most people that send follow up emails focus on themselves. Think about it. Would you rather receive an email from somebody following up after a meeting telling you about the work they do and how wonderful they are or receive an email discussing their intentions to help you grow your business? Who would you respond to first?
I recently met with a seasoned professional business coach. He told me that he doesn’t do well at networking events and therefore doesn’t enjoy them. He explained how he meets many people, gets their business card and follows up with them (using suggestions 1-5 above) but they never respond. I asked him to describe what he write in his emails. He explained that he describes meeting together; some other general cordial remarks and then launches into a soft sales pitch about what he does and who he wants to meet. When I suggested my alternative of having the email describe how he can help the other person, he gave me that great “Ah Ha!” look and my friend is looking forward to his next networking connection to utilize his new plan!
In your next networking encounter, try this strategy in your follow up endeavor and let me/us know on the blog how it worked out for you.
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