Networking: It's All in the Follow-Up

Follow Up! Follow Up! Follow Up!

This next part is the 2nd most important part of your investment. Successful networking is all about the follow-up, which should start right after your event.

Here are some tips on what you should do immediately following your event:

1. Send an invitation on LinkedIN with a personal note. Don’t just invite everyone you met to connect with you on LinkedIN and call it a day.
2. Send an “SS” (Short & Sweet) email to each person saying how nice it was to meet them at the conference, a personal comment you remember like, “Hope your daughter’s soccer game goes well,” and then suggest a day/time in the near future for you to get together for coffee. Simple, sweet, personal.
3. Organize yourself with a reminder that will pop up in your calendar for you to follow up with each person.
4. Follow each person on their social media platforms.
5. Social media, like Facebook, will tell you what your contact is up to, when they have a birthday and other celebrations that can present you with a good reason for a follow-up.
6. The Power of 3’s. Ken Kragen, the mastermind producer behind “We Are the World” and “Hands Across America” and Manager to Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers, Olivia Newton John, and the Bee Gees just to name a few, spoke at the eWomenNetwork conference on “The Power of 3’s.” He says to create notoriety, you need to do 3 things together. For example, 1. Send an email 2. Send a handwritten note and 3. Make a phone call.
7. Give First. This is one of the core principles that Founder & CEO of eWomenNetwork, Sandra Yancey,  lives by at her company. She says networking is all about creating relationships, and a healthy relationship is about giving first and expecting nothing in return. She says it’s all about “lust” building, not “list building.”