How To Stay Engaged With Your Virtual Network In three Easy Steps By Malla Haridat
If you are
a member of the BOSS network, I’m sure you know already the value of
networking. But how do you continue to
engage people after meeting them? I know
I’ve come home from events with a ton of business cards - excited to have met
so many great people and wondering how I’m going to stay in contact with
allllll of them. When you factor in
networking with all of the other things going on in your business, it can be
overwhelming!
So here
are three things I do that help me stay engaged. Each of them is manageable - 15 min max. And they really help me stay in touch with
contacts outside of the first meeting.
Email a LinkedIn contact
I’m sure
most of you have a LinkedIn network. But
how many people have you emailed/messaged your network in the past month?
Especially
someone that you haven’t spoken to in the past six-nine months.
I started
doing this recently. I made a commitment
of contacting two people each month.
People that I haven’t heard from in the past year. During this past month, one friend shared
with me news about a new contract that she won.
We celebrated. Another friend
told me that her business had fallen on hard times and she was looking for
work. We started brainstorming employment options, I reached out to someone in
my network and we both said some prayers to keep her positive.
Yes, I’m
only staying connected with two people at a time in my network. But isn’t that what networking really is -
staying engaged with individuals on a personal level?
Connect with someone in your industry on Twitter
Oh the
beast called Twitter. How do you meet
someone you’ve never met in under 140 characters?
Easy. Keep sharing something of value for
THEM.
●
If
you are under 1,000 followers - Pick someone you want to meet in your
industry. Check out Twitter lists like
wefollow or other directories to find new experts.
●
If
you are over 1,000 followers - find someone that has engaged with you who has
an interesting profile...and you haven’t spoken directly to them.
In both
examples, don’t ask the person for anything.
Find out some things that interest them - recent news, areas of interest
- and share information that will be helpful to THEM.
I’ve done
this several times and been pleasantly surprised when person reaches out to me
directly. Often when they connect, we
don’t have the awkward “Who are you dance?”
I’ve already learned some things about them and they already get I’m
about helping people. I’ve had contacts
e share coupon codes for events, freebies via a link, and the best one - advice
on how to handle a situation I was dealing with. All because I continued to build a
relationship by sharing something of value to the other person.
Reach out to the BOSSes
Don’t
forget to reach out and meet new BOSSes!
Develop a
draft email that shares a little about you and a though provoking
question. For example, I might share-
“Hi fellow BOSS member, I am Malla and I am an entrepreneurship coach. I just recently got back from an industry
conference on entrepreneurship education in DC and had a great time networking
and meeting others. What’s the last good
industry event that you attended?”
In your
intro email, share something interesting about yourself and think of a good
topic that offers insight into the other person.
(And by
the way, if anyone wants to connect with me, feel free to tweet me and tell me
about the last good industry event you attended. I’m always interested in finding out what
good things people are doing!)
You need
to be open to not hearing a response from everyone. But just like sales, some will, some won’t,
so what because there is always someone waiting. Overtime, I’m sure you will find some great
new people in your network by trying this technique.
I hope you found these helpful. I would be interested to hear how well they
work for you and/or if you have other strategies you could share for engaging
with your virtual network.
To Find Out More About Malla Haridat Follower Her @MallaHaridat
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