Have you ever noticed when your decide to do something, doors open in that direction?
I’ve been spending a lot of time helping to build our e-publishing business, PaperBox Books. When I decided I’d better start concentrating on SNB Consulting Services again, suddenly, I was being introduced to people left right and center. The interesting part of these introductions is that most of them were initiated online.
It’s an interesting phenomenon and one that I highly recommend you take advantage of. Don’t leave these introductions hanging. FOLLOW UP
Like face-to-face or networking via platforms like LinkedIn, it’s not the people you know who garner you the most business. It’s the people who know them.
For example:
I was chatting with a woman while at a small meeting.
She went home and told her husband about what I was doing. When he contacted me, he was interested in SNB Consulting Services to aligned with his own venture, but he also had a friend who was working in the publishing industry, who he though might be interested in what we were doing at PaperBox Books.
Since our initial meeting, he’s introduced me (via email) to his publishing friend and given me a heads-up to a job that he found while doing his own research.
In return, I’m working on a few introductions for him from the people in my contact list who could potentially be great clients for him.
Funny how that all works eh?
My advice:
Take advantage of every introduction you receive. Don’t make the judgment call to ignore the introduction because you can’t see how they could be a beneficial alliance. You don’t know who they know, or who they’re about to meet.
Etiquette:
In your email, make a proper introduction just as you would in person. Jim this is John, John does XYZ and I thought the two of you might have a lot to talk about. John, this is Jim. He does ABC and is is beginning to seek out people who do XYZ. This helps to set the stage for their conversation when they know a bit about each other, so they already have common ground.
In your first email responding to the introduction, it’s polite to include the introducer to let them know you’ve made the contact.
If you can, reciprocate. If you have people in your network who might be interested in what others are doing, introduce them. While it may have no immediate benefit to you, it adds to your reputation and keeps you not only in people’s minds, but keeps you in a favourable light because you helped.
