Last week, I talked about Guy Kawasaki’s blog post, “The Art of Schmoozing”, and how it’s important to ask good questions (then shut up), and to unveil your passions.
But what I didn’t talk about was following up, something so important that Kawasaki spent the entire second half of the post talking about that.
- The most important rule is to follow up. It can be a short email, an invitation to lunch or coffee, or just some sort of response showing you remembered them. Kawasaki — who is world famous and everyone wants to hang with him — said, “Over the course of my career, I’ve given away thousands of business cards. . . Funny thing: hardly anyone ever follows up. Frankly, I don’t know why people bother asking for a business card if they’re not going to follow up.”
If you can get someone like Guy Kawasaki to give you a business card, why wouldn’t you follow up? If you ask for a card, send some sort of message. If you know you won’t, don’t bother.
- Do something for someone else. Call it karma, call it Giver’s Gain, call it a big old helping of heart-warming, feel-good smooshiness. But do something nice for other people. Connect them with the kind of customer they’re looking for. Tell them about a job opening that requires their skill set. Become one of their customers. Be someone who is useful to them, because one day they could become useful to you.
- Ask for favors in return. Kawasaki says that “good schmoozers give favors. Good schmoozers also return favors. However, great schmoozers ask for the return of favors.” By clearing the table of debts owed to you, you can receive favors in return. A few rounds of this, and you and your fellow schmoozer are providing some great value to each other. You become a resource for them, and they become a resource for you.
Networking is more than just flipping business cards around a networking event, and follow up is more than just a quick email to everyone you got a business card from. “We met at a networking event sometime in the last month. If you ever have need of my product or service, please let me know” just doesn’t cut it.
Follow up is about growing a relationship with people you can help, about providing value to their lives, and making them more successful. Because they’ll do the same thing for you. So, try to be selective about who you meet at these networking events, and then do your best to help them out. You never know who’s going to help you in return.
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