Don’t Ghost New People You Meet, Follow Up!

We can enjoy an innocent Halloween story like Casper. In the 90s version of ‘Casper,  The Friendly Ghost’  a therapist and his daughter help the ghost of a young boy fight off goons and evil spirits. He remained present, and even though he was a ghost, he didn’t ghost his new friends. Life gets busy, but don’t ghost new people you meet, follow up.

Once you sport the Ask Me What I Do Signature Shirt, the floodgates are open. Every corner you turn, you will meet new people. It can be overwhelming. Have you heard of the question, ‘how do you eat an elephant?’ The response is, ‘one bite at a time.’ That is how we want you to handle meeting an infatuation of new people.

After meeting each person, jot down that encounter in your phone or our Networking Notebook. Include something memorable about what you talked about; maybe it was a question regarding your business or how they have a vacation coming up.  These are nuggets of information you can use to spark conversation in an email, call, or direct message. If you reference a topic you discussed, it shows people you were listening intently and not responding, which is a sign of a great leader.

Schedule a follow-up as soon as possible. If you are going to be the next tycoon, you must keep a current calendar.  While you may think you can rest on your memory, task and people can fall through the cracks. It doesn’t matter if you use an old school planner or a digital google calendar. We recommend reaching out within two days if possible. However, we know people get busy, so add a follow-up appointment to your Sunday ‘to do’  list. Give yourself a time limit to send emails or direct messages, even if it’s just 15 or 30 minutes.

The network follow-up is necessary; it helps build trust. Building a solid relationship can help turn a quick chat in the elevator into an important business deal. When you reconnect with the people you meet is like watering a seed you planted.  You might not know when it will grow, but you are bound to reap the rewards with consistent  TLC.