By Catherine Carol Lott; Photos by: Justin Hackworth and Brooke Dennis for Alt Summit
Relationships are one of the best perks of participating in a conference, right alongside the information gained. And the most crucial thing you need to do post-conference is to begin building the relationships you started while you were there.
Don’t miss out on opportunities to build better relationships just because you didn’t put in a little effort to follow up.
Tips for your follow-up
- Do a little extra research before following up. Read a few blog posts. Check out their website. You might find something else interesting to talk about.
- If you said it, do it. It seems like some common sense, but sometimes we need a reminder that if you told someone you’d do something, you actually need to do it.
- Schedule it on your calendar. Make notes for which days you’ll follow up with each group. This organization will make the task feel less cumbersome and keep you from forgetting anyone.
- Refresh their memory. It’s courteous to remind someone who you are when you’re first reconnecting, but without being blatant. This can easily be done by mentioning when/where/how you met or what you discussed.
- Be specific. Just emailing to say “Nice to meet you” is a waste of everyone’s time. Make sure your email has specific value to your contact. This is where that extra research could come in handy.
- There’s more than just email. Give them a call, follow their blog, connect with them on LinkedIn and any social media sites they have listed on their business card.
- Don’t throw away any business cards! Every relationship is important — don’t lose their contact information.
- Make notes for next year. Maybe you didn’t collect all of the business cards you wanted to grab. Perhaps you didn’t make notes on the back of those that you did grab to remind yourself of that person or conversation. Make note of this now so you’ll remember next time.
This post was sponsored by TinyPrints.com.
