Staying in Touch after Networking

The master networkers have a way of keeping their name continually in front of their contacts in a way that demonstrates their genius – their innate ability to know what is going in in their industry and this world.

You want to do this, too, starting right after you’ve made contact with someone.

So what do you do after you’ve had a 45-minute networking meeting with someone?

Most of the time, she hasn’t immediately told you where the perfect job is for you. And six months from now, she may have forgotten who you are.

You need to stay in touch after your meeting, of course, because eventually one of the people you meet will hear of the perfect job for you. But how?

Not by email! The first thing you need to do after a networking meeting is send a thank you note, and not by email. Job hunters stare at empty email boxes all day long, but busy managers get 250 emails a day, not counting the porno ads and other spam. An email note is easily deleted, and usually will be, or never read at all. I can’t tell you the number of people who are past networking contacts who send me regular email updates that I skip over, along with the this is so funny emails that friends forward to me that I never have time to open.

Instead, send a snail mail thank you note and include something of interest to the person along with it. A good thing is an article from a magazine or trade journal that is interesting enough for her to read, or better, one good enough for her to pass along to someone else after she’s read it. Best to aim for something from a publication that your contact normally doesn’t read, or she may have seen it already.

As an alternative, send your contact something about a hobby that she mentions. If she explores caves or scuba dives, send an article along about this activity, or about a Gaugin expedition coming to town, if she tells you she’s a fan.

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Keep doing the same thing to stay in touch. Continue sending articles or other bits of information that are of interest, with a handwritten or customized, typed note on expensive stationery (handwritten will really make it seem like it is personal, even if you are sending the same article to 100 people).

This is far better than sending updated copies of your résumé, which some job hunters insist on doing (some send their resume over and over again, mentioning that they’ve made some subtle changes or whatever). That just reminds your contacts that you’re still out of work or still looking for a job, and doesn’t project the image you’re trying to project.

What image are you trying to project? You want to remind him that you are someone who is really with it, and very knowledgeable about what is going on in her industry. At the same time, these regular mailings keep your name in front of the person, just as any good marketing program would do.

You can call back on occasion for a how the hell are you call, but once again, bring some business intelligence with the call, and don’t make them too often – perhaps every six months.

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