Every smart entrepreneur knows that attending networking events will help you grow your business.
What many business owners don’t realize is that the most important part of networking is the follow-up.
If you take the time, expense, and effort to go to a business networking event to meet other business owners and fail to follow up afterwards, you have basically just thrown all of your investment out the window.
Do not be wasteful with your resources. As an entrepreneur, your time, money, and effort are not limitless and you should treat them as such.
Nevertheless, the follow-up is the part of networking that often gets omitted. Perhaps this is because it can feel forced or awkward when you try to follow-up with someone you have only just met, especially if your in-person interaction was brief.
So how do you follow up without making it obvious that you ae following up?
First of all, don’t wait too long to follow-up. If you wait too long, you risk having the other person forget who you are or lose interest in you all together. At the same time, you don’t want to appear too eager or desperate, either. So wait two or three days after the networking event to make your next move.
Also, remember that when following up, you don’t want to appear needy or as if you want to take something from them. Do your best to be helpful and sincerely try to give something of value to the person you are networking with.
Here are a few ways you can follow up with someone you’ve recently met at a business networking event that will put you and your brand in a positive light:
Send a referral
The greatest “excuse” to get in touch with someone you barely know is to have a referral for them.
A business referral can be an introduction to someone who might be a possible new client for your new business contact, or possibly a resource for information, a supplier, or a potential mentor.
Make sure that your referral is a quality one, and that the person you are referring will also benefit from meeting your new business contact.
Forward an article
When you meet someone new at a business networking event, make it a point to learn a little bit about what they do and what interests them. Then when you follow up with them, send them an article that you’ve found that might interest them.
The article does not necessarily have to be about work or business, but it could be about a hobby or passion that came up in conversation. Preferably, it’s about something the two of you have in common so that you can continue to build rapport.
Sending your new business colleague an article of interest shows that you were paying attention to them and that you care about being of value to them.
Invite them out for coffee
When you’ve met someone briefly at a networking event and you seem to have some common ground that would be mutually beneficial to explore, invite the person out to coffee in order to get to know one another better.
A coffee meeting is ideal because it need not be long (half an hour or an hour), it’s inexpensive, and you can discuss your businesses without distraction from other people.
Come prepared to a coffee meeting with lots of questions for the other person, so that the conversation keeps flowing, and they feel you are sincerely interested in what they do. Take this opportunity to learn as much as you can about the other person and how you may help them.
When choosing a location for a coffee meeting, choose a place that is easily accessible, exudes good taste and professionalism, has ample parking, and isn’t too noisy or busy during the time of day you have chosen to meet.
Add them to your email list
If you have an email newsletter or e-blast that you send out to your contacts once in a while, adding your new contact to your email list is a great way to keep in touch. However, you want to be careful about how you do this, because unless you’ve gained some minimal level of rapport or trust, adding someone to your email list can easily come across as selfishly wanting to dump a lot of spam on an unsuspecting victim.
Depending on where you reside and do business, it may even be illegal for you to add someone to your email list without their consent, or at least implied consent. In Canada, this issue is covered by CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation).
In any case, whether it is against the law or not, it is bad form to add someone to your email subscriber list without asking them for their permission first.
So wait until you’ve had a bit of a conversation (or maybe two or three conversations) and then mention that your e-blast is full of helpful tips and information that you think they will find helpful, and you’d like to add them to your subscriber list if it would be okay with them.
And then – above all else – make sure you do not over-email your new contact, and be mindful to fill your emails with useful information and resources that would benefit your contact list.
Social media
Social media is a useful tool for staying in touch with business contacts.
Much like adding someone to your email list, you want to ask first and make sure it’s okay (and not creepy) to connect with someone over LinkedIn or Facebook or any other social media platforms.
First and foremost, make sure that your social media profile is 100% professional. Your social media presence should take your personal brand and business brand into account at all times. This means having a professional headshot and well-written description in your profile. Also, make sure you share useful content in your feed.
That said, don’t completely take the “social” out of “social media” because you do want to connect as a person, not a robot, at the end of the day.
