Networking Skills (Part 3)

How you nurture and take care of your business network can have such a positive impact on your business.

I'm sharing these simple steps to help make sure you're in the absolute best position to grow your business.

Today's Networking Skills (Part 3) discusses the importance of following-up.

1. For recent contacts; always follow up with a friendly email or Linked-In invite. No sales please - blatant or sneaky. Business people are intelligent, clued-in, switched-on people – and they can spot a sales pitch even when you think you'll try and sneak one past them anyway. The truth is, it doesn't work, it's says more about your heavy, clunky style of business than it does about re-establishing a business contact. Not nice at all. Keep your email light, hospitable, friendly, '…and if there's ever anything I can do for you' etc.
   
2. For contacts more than a couple of months old, always begin by reminding them of when and where you met. If you had a particularly interesting or funny conversation, or something unusual happened whilst you were talking include that too, it'll increase the likelihood your contact will remember who you are. Next, apologies for being remise with getting in touch. There is no other way around this. By not mentioning the fact that you took too long, you're skirting around the obvious (you're lying), yet by apologizing and saying you want to be in contact now, you're being honest and up front – and that's so much more attractive in the world of business.
   
3. Finally, if your ex-contact doesn't reply, treat it as valuable feedback and respect their decision not to respond (for whatever reason). You don't need the details. Just delete the email address and move on. Look at this as a valuable lesson towards the importance of following up leads more quickly in the future.
   

That's it for this time. Begin going through that big pile of neglected business cards today on your desk or bookshelf today, and by the next time I blog midweek you'll be well on your way to re-establishing contacts as well as tidying up and fine tuning your new networking strategy.

Wishing you an amazing week.