Business networking, social networking, friendship, relationships … every contact you have with people has certain rules. Sadly, much of what we do is a big `no-no’. Thankfully Yahoo has a great piece about networking: 7 deadly sins of networking, and how you can avoid them. My favorite tip, and the most true for A LOT of people is #6:
6. Failing to properly follow up. If someone takes the time to help you in any way — giving an informational interview, making an introduction, reviewing your resume, sending you a new client — remember to follow up and give proper thanks. In most cases, a quick email, hand-written note or call will suffice.
I think this can be supplemented with a 6.5:
- Failure to follow up at all. Most people get enough courage to finally get some contact information, but then never go through with it. Most business contact do not give out their information to just anyone. Once you have their information, call them. At least e-mail them saying, “Hi, thanks for the talk. <blah blah blah>”. You’ll be surprised how often they WILL respond and how much they are willing to talk/help simply because you did what you said you would and you asked. By not following-up at all, especially if you said you would do so at SO-AND-SO time makes you look very very poor/bad in their eyes.
Other things that I know from experience can really mess up a relationship are:
- Not contacting them when you said you would. If you say you will call at 9am on Thursday, call at 9am exactly. Do not be a minute late. Of course, any reasonable business person will give you a leeway of a minute or two. By not contacting them when/how you said you would, you show that you are unreliable. A tip from Harv T. Eker, a multi-multi-millionaire business man and coach, said it rather well (I’m paraphrasing here as I don’t remember his exact words): Just to make sure that you’re calling on time, ask them what time they have on their watch. Synchronize your watch to theirs if you have to, but be on time.
- Being too vague. Often is can be good to be vague, as then you do not give away something accidently (hopefully). Though, if you are trying to make a good solid connection being vague too often can be rather irritating to the other party. Dive into some juicy details at times. Who knows, they might be able to offer good insight into what your talking about. Also, talking in only vague terms all the time will make you seem like a mystic with smoke, glass and mirrors. A good business person will avoid those types of people who cannot quantify what they are talking about. Show them your stuff has some real meat to it!
- Not giving credit where credit is due. This is a good way to burn bridges fast. If you are with a business partner who has done some good work, and you are ignoring their effort and commitment you are bound to loose your partner much sooner than later. If you’re partner managed to secure a good deal, say so! Say “thanks to my partners efforts we now have XYZ” instead of something more generic which ignores them (such as: “The items were secured by our company”) … especially if your partner has a vested intrest in the deal.
Hope these tips help along with the Yahoo article.
Link: 7 deadly sins of networking, and how you can avoid them
What do you think about this? Let me know by sounding off in the comments!
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