Today is the last day of the Rise 2018 conference. This year’s conference had over 15,000 attendees where I received and handed out over 200 business cards, just like I do at every other conference. However, every time I meet some great people at an event, I end up losing contact with them and it isn’t until the next time I bump into them that we speak again.
Tired of consistently failing at my networking efforts, I was determined to figure out a system to keep in touch with the network I formed at Rise. My quest for a system was solved by Gaurav Singhvi, founder of the Financial Supermarket and an Executive Director of BNI Surat.
Gaurav introduced me to a 24x7x30 system of networking that he learned from Dr Ivan Misner and Brennan Scanlon’s book Avoiding the Networking Disconnect. While I have not had a chance to read the book (it is available on KindleUnlimited for free) I did read Dr Misner’s post on Entrepreneur.com and heard a podcast through which he explains this system. In a nutshell, Dr Misner advocates that one should reach out to a person that they have met at a networking event within 24 hours through email or a handwritten note. 7 days later, add them on the social media account that they use most frequently but without an intent of selling them anything. In the next 30 days, try to set up a meeting either in person, via Skype or a GoToMeeting and seek out how can one provide help in their business. This must be done with the intention of relationship-building and not market a product or service. In this way, the contact becomes a part of one’s network and the networking exercise can bear fruit.
I believe that this system makes more sense than any random system (read: lack of system) that I utilize so I am going to apply it right away and measure my results. If you have utilized this system or know of an alternative, I’d love to hear about it!
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