Ask any professional services business person or marketer what their best marketing tactic is, and more often than not they will say, networking.
When I picture networking, I see a dark-ish (maybe a bar or fluorescent-lit conference) room and a sea of people clutching drinks or finger foods, juggling purses or cellphones or business cards, paired off in twos or threes, trying to hear each other over the din.
Personally that is my LEAST-favorite networking scenario, and thankfully networking doesn’t have to look that way. In fact, at the Circular Summit this year, Day 1 was spent with all participants doing activities – from hiking to vineyard tours to bike rides – and getting to know each other that way!
No matter how you do it, networking = relationship building. I like to call it making new friends. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
Whether your preferred tactic is going to that happy hour event, or speaking, podcasting, going to conferences and summits, gentle creeping on LinkedIn, whatever, the most powerful way to build your services business and your visibility is to make new friends.
I’m proud and grateful that I love doing this. I love meeting new people and befriending them, personally and professionally.
Unfortunately… my follow up suuuuucks lately.
I make the connection, have the conversation, get the business card (or don’t – that’s a problem too), then put it on my desk and stare at it.
What’s holding me back from taking the next steps in these new relationships?
Time, mostly. It takes just enough time to follow up that I put it off and put it off because although it’s important, it doesn’t feel urgent.
But relationships are my FAVORITE thing!
How can I make it easier on myself?
I remembered a process I made for networking functions, that has withered on Google Drive for months. Time to dust it off and see if having a concrete set of steps to take will move my ass forward:
Event Prep (if applicable):
- Research presenters (if applicable)
- Create 1-2 questions to ask each
- Follow them on social media
- Post about the event on social media
- Share event with your email list
- Scan guest-list for others to connect with
- Follow them on social media
- Make sure to bring business cards!!
Event follow up:
- Add contact info from all business cards to CRM
- Email relevant people to confirm relationship
- Ask if you can add them to your email list
- Follow them on social media
- Connect on LinkedIn
- Reach out to presenters to thank them
- Reach out to hosts, thanking them
Today I am COMMITTING to following these steps with the pile of business cards on my desk.
