by Alice Heiman on November 29, 2011
(In an earlier post, I discussed whether or not you should be on LinkedIn. If you’re new to LinkedIn, you’ll want to read that article first to learn how to build a strong network.)
There is lots of talk about the new LinkedIn company pages. For some it is just another place on the internet they need to keep current. It can seem daunting at times. I currently have business pages on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google +, and Youtube that I need to update regularly, along with all of my personal profiles. Not to mention this blog that needs new content weekly. It does take a lot of time, but so does any sales and marketing plan. The better you get at it the faster it is and the more results you get. That said, it is a lot to keep up with and it is constantly changing, so I do recommend you train someone at your company to help you or hire and train an intern.
There is plenty of good information out there on how to put up your company page and I have linked to those at the end of this article. What’s missing is what to do once you complete your company profile. It’s like any other social media, if you are posting things and no one is watching you don’t get results. So here are 5 things I am doing to get people to follow my company page. First and foremost, I let them know I have one and share the link in the following ways: Read more…
by Alice Heiman on November 8, 2011
Here I sit, the queen of follow up, writing a post about follow up because the past few weeks I have failed miserably at it. Everyone blocks time on their calendar to attend an event, whether it be a trade show, conference or a professional organization’s networking event. But rarely do they schedule time to do the follow up. I always recommend putting time on the calendar the next day after the event to sort through the business cards and a take appropriate actions. But the past few weeks I have been so busy, I now have 3 stacks of business cards from recent events that are collecting dust. Well this weekend I plan to do something about that and I thought I would share my plans with you and give you the list of follow up activities so that you can use them the next time you have follow up to do from networking.
- Schedule time to do the follow up! The very most important tip and the one I failed to do recently. Block at least two opportunities for follow up in the 2 to 3 days following the event. That way if something comes up and usurps the first scheduled time you have another planned.
- Pre-plan you follow up. Think about why you are going to the event, what you hope to accomplish, the types of people you will meet and use that information to decide what you will do to follow up. You may end up drafting an email that you can tailor after the event or prepare a postcard with a specific message. Or you may craft a message that you will cut and paste into a LinkedIn or Facebook email. You might write an article that pertains to the event and prepare to post it on your blog and then email that link out after the event or post it on the corresponding LinkedIn group.
- Use your smartphone. This works really well when I am at a conference. As I collect cards throughout the day I use the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn apps on my phone to connect with people. I also use Card Munch, which allows you to take a photo of the card with your smartphone and add it to your database.
- Hire Someone. If you don’t have an assistant, hire someone to enter the contacts into your database so that you can easily contact them. I do have an assistant, so I write on the business cards and then bundle them together with a note of where I collected them. Then my assistant enters the data and a note for each that reminds me where I met them and any notes I may have written on the card.
Networking is one of the easiest and most effective ways for salespeople and small business owners to generate leads but it is ineffective if you don’t do the follow up. If you would like to learn more about how to get connected at networking events, join me for my webinar
Networking Mastery for Sales Professionals on December 8th at 2:30 (ET). You can
register now and
save 20%.
