Networking Systems for Success

How many dozens of business cards do you have with people you’ve never contacted?

We’ve all done it, gone to a great event with tons of people you want in your inner circle, as clients, colleagues or just referral sources. Then you get home and that wealth of information gathers dust on your desk for months until you think “I can never follow up now…”

The good news is there’s a solution and in today’s post I’m going to show you how to build your network in an hour. Ready?

Tip #1 Create time 

Before you even leave for the next event I want you to look through your calendar and create space after the event, preferably the next day, to implement this plan. Mark off at least an hour and just title this time “Biz Card Follow Up” and make sure you’ll be at your computer.

This is important to establish a system (you know I’m all about systems by now, right?) to succeed.

True story time: last month I attended an event and did not do this step. I left the event and traveled for 5 more days before arriving home, exhausted. And while I’ve been working through the stack of cards for the amazing people I want to connect to, I’m still not done! Oh had I just scheduled some time the following morning before I checked out of my wifi friendly hotel!

Tip #2 Network

When you’re meeting new people, be sure to ask good questions. Who they work with, what they’re passionate about, what they uniquely provide. This serves two purposes: one, you’ll be able to identify other people within your network who might like to meet your new friend, and you’ll be able to weed out the wannabes. Such as this conversation I had at an event:

“Hi Anne! What do you do?”

“I’m a blogger.”

“Oh, great! What topics do you write about?”

“Everything.”

Uh, great? Do you see the problem? “I’m a blogger” tells me nothing about your niche, your passion or your business. And even though I tried to ferret out more information, how do you discuss “everything” or connect to this person? Would I send her a colleague who wanted to read about “everything” or not? Also, I have no idea if her name was Anne, that’s how memorable she was.

Some people attend these events just for the food and socialization practice. That’s fine, just try to identify and spend your time talking with fewer people who are genuinely interested in your business or you in theirs (ideally both).

Tip #3 Document

As quickly as possible, if you can the next morning, you want to take the information about the person you just met and add it to your CRM or Customer Relationship Management tool. No, it doesn’t matter if they’re not a customer yet.

For this I use Highrise and it’s a fairly affordable option. If you’re serious about growing your business and developing systems that are scalable it’s a great tool. If you follow this system and get just one referral or new client it’ll pay for Highrise many times over.

After each event I type in the information provided on the business card, including the address, and then make a note about where I met them and anything memorable from our conversation. Even if you have a horrible short term memory like I do, you’ll be able to remember the basics. If you’re networking for quality, not quantity, this step is even easier. It helps that I’m a fast typist but do not get caught up in the minutia here. You probably don’t need to outsource this to anyone right now. Just enter them during the hour you set aside.

Tagging your leads can be fun because you’re the only one who will be seeing these for the most part. I use a combo of location and industry so common tags I use are “lawyer” “San Francisco” “marketer” “coach” “Sacramento” “wellness” and “drinks” – the latter obviously reserved for those I talked with over dinner or drinks after a conference.

Now you can sort through the leads and your network when you’re looking for marketing help or someone in San Francisco that practices yoga or pilates (both added under wellness) you’ll be able to see everyone in your network.

Tip #4 Follow up

Before you toss the business card and leave your new network friends to stagnate in your CRM you have to take one more step: contact them.

That’s right, send a follow up email within 48 hours of the event. Now, if it’s been more than 48 hours, all hope is not lost. But ideally you want to reach out right away.

“But what do I say?”

It honestly depends on your goal, but you should be able to create an easy template based on the next step you see such as:

I’ll refer to you if I come across someone needing a ________
Let’s continue our conversation over coffee/lunch/drinks
Tell me more about your business
Would you like to receive my newsletter via email?

That last one is a bit tricky so I’d reserve it for those who you talk to who sounded interested in your business. Of course, if someone expressed an interest in hiring you, reach out to them first! Continue the conversation and sign the client if they’re a good fit.

Highrise makes this incredibly easy because you can schedule a task and they’ll email you the reminder. The recent networking event where I met a ton of great people and three potential new clients left me with a dozen people who I wanted to connect with right away. So for each person I added a task with my next step:

call about setting up a meeting
write thank you email
contact for more info on services
email after returns from vacation in 2 weeks

Because it was just a few hours ago I can still remember details like this and each person has a next step outlined.

Tip #5 Canned Responses

If you use gmail, be sure to enable the Canned Responses Lab in Mail Settings. This allows you to write one message and then insert it to multiple emails. I use this and customize each email but the standard stuff is already there. Alternatively you can create these messages and save them to use after each networking event.

In my Play a Bigger Game Business Playbook I describe this process, it’s just like the football team that needs to know the play so they can perform. You’re the same way, once you know what you should do you can get to it.

And if you don’t have your Play a Bigger Game Playbook Guide yet sign up here to get it free!

How well does this work you ask? Personally in my business it’s made a world of difference and brought in three new clients in two months just from following up. Here’s what one of my rockstar clients had to say:

Kelly helped me identify the CRM I needed to improve my lead follow up and we were able to use software I already owned and get started immediately. Using her follow up tips, I was able to immediately identify and reach out to a lead and closed the sale! Being able to track my leads, assign tasks and track the sales has been a weight off my mind and helped grow my business.

Charles Ogwyn, My Internet Marketing Partner