Episode 199: “Sorting Out Who’s Who”

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Synopsis

How often have you come home from a large networking event with a huge stack of business cards and wondered, “Now what?” Here are some tips for sorting out your potential prospects and referral partners from the rest.

1. Make a note of something you discussed on the back of the business card right after you talk to the person. If this is not appropriate in your culture, keep a small notebook handy to jot down a few words next to the person’s name.
2. Divide the most immediate prospects into one pile and the less immediate prospects into another.
3. Enter the first group into your contact database and send a quick note by either e-mail or snail mail. Try to set up a meeting for coffee or some other fairly immediate follow-up meeting to find out how you can help them.
4. Send another message to your less immediate prospects, even if you don’t set up a meeting.

Next week’s podcast will provide some specific examples of follow-up notes to these two groups of contacts.

Brought to you by Networking Now.

Complete Transcript of BNI Podcast Episode 199 -

Priscilla:
Hello everyone and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. I am Priscilla Rice, and I am coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkley, CA. I am joined today by the Founder and Chairman of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan. How are you?

Ivan:
Hi. I am great.

Priscilla:
Before we start, I just wanted to comment about last week’s podcast with Dan Romero. I think that was 198. I really, really admire what he did when a new member joined the chapter. It seemed to me that it really paid off for him, and I can understand why. He was very generous.

Ivan:
Yeah. It really did. You bring up a great point. I think it just keeps coming back again and again to people who participate in BNI and really practice the philosophy of givers gain. It comes back to them many times over. We’ve done podcasts with a number of people and we see it consistently. I’ve certainly seen it consistently over the last five years.

Priscilla:
Well, I just want to say that as a financial consultant, which is what he is, he understood that he needed to gain credibility, so he approached it as if having a good response was in finding referrals for other people. I think that is so neat.

Ivan:
That’s exactly what he did. So if you are listening to this podcast and haven’t listened to last week’s podcast, go back and listen to it because it really is a great podcast. So this week, Priscilla, we are going to be talking about sorting out who’s who. We are going to change things up a little bit and we’re going to be talking about attending a big networking event. Not usually a BNI-;like event, although certainly in networking, you’ll meet new people and visitors. It will really be relevant when you go to a large networking event of some kind, maybe a chamber. You meet a lot of new people and now you have a pocket full of new business cards. How many times has that happened, Priscilla, right?

Priscilla:
So many times you can’t imagine.

Ivan:
A pocket full of business cards. And you are not sure what to do with it. So what is your first order of business? There are a lot of things that you can do and if you’re listening to this podcast, apply the ideas that work for you. I think the first order of business is to sort out who’s who, to take a look at the business cards.

I like writing on the back of business cards- now, you can’t always do this in all cultures. In some cultures, writing on the back of business cards is bad culture, so be aware of cultural differences. But that being said, in most environments, if you said, “Do you mind if I write a note of the back of your card?” most people would say it’s fine. It’s perfectly acceptable in most cultures.

I like to do that just to remind me of something that was said when I talk to somebody. Now you need to separate out people who you think might become new clients or referral partners. Remember, networking is more about farming than hunting. You are not out there trying to bag the big one and get clients from it. But these are prospective people who you want to build a relationship with who might become clients down the road- or referral partners. You want to do that right now from the stack that you have. You want to separate the ones who might be valuable contacts from the ones who are maybe a little more long term, a little farther away.

So let’s call the one term, the people who want to be clients or referral partners now, let’s call that List A and the rest, List B, people who might be something in the future. You’ve got a contact database, which you should have, what you want to do is take a look at your B list, the people that are going to be down the road a little bit. You want these folks to know you enjoyed meeting with then. So in other words you want to follow up with them. You want to keep the door open to doing business with them later.

You do this with a quick note, either by snail mail or email. If you do this by snail mail, you know, postal service, if you find that you need to reconnect with one of these people at a late time, at least you will have some traction in starting a relationship simply because you have followed up with a quick note thanking them for connecting with them.

I just went to an event last week. It was a smaller group, but very impressed with how the people at that event followed up effectively and dropped me an email and talked about our meeting. That’s a very good connection to make when meeting somebody.

Now what do you do with the A list? These are people who have immediate potential as a referral partner or potential client, maybe, down the road. You need to follow up with them quickly, I recommend within a few days, before you drop off their radar. What you want to do is, I think, initiate a coffee connection of some kind. I don’t drink coffee but you get what I mean. You sit down with someone and have a cup of coffee or tea, whatever, soda, with these contacts. So you want to do a follow up meeting where you get to know him or how and follow up with a meeting on how they can help you and how you can help them. That’s really the important thing. How you can help them. Anything short of you finding ways to help them will generally be treated as a sales call instead of a relationship building contact.

So as for this first contact- a handwritten note, or even an email is acceptable, but the focus should be that you would like to know more about them. Then you have to play it that way. Otherwise, it’s going to feel just like a sales call.

At this point, you may be asking what about those people I meet that aren’t potential clients and aren’t in a field that can refer business to me? Should I follow up with them anyway? They are not really in an A or B list, but the bottom line is that you never know who other people know. Even a quick little “nice to meet you” email is enough to get these people to remember you later, when you discover you may need something or have a referral for them.

So I do recommend following up with something, if possible, real simple as a response to most of the people that I meet.

Now you know how to sort out the who’s who, the A list, the B List and the follow up.

You want to make sure that you do this each and every time that you get business cards from your daily networking activities. I can guarantee you that you will start to see greater results from your networking efforts if you start to do this.

Now, next week’s podcast, what you are going to hear on next week’s podcast are some specific examples of what you follow up notes should be to group A and B contacts, what you should say and how you should say it. I am going to give you a script that you can use in next weeks podcast that you can play with, put in your own words, that you apply when you follow up with people that you meet in large networking events. That’s my material for today, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
I have something to talk about. I know Brian Bouffant who is a big real estate coach that we’ve had on the program really believes in the personal hand written notes because that makes you stand out as email is so commonly used. But one thing is that when people hand you cards now, often they don’t have a street address. When you send them an email, you have kind of a record of what you said.

In a way, even though it’s not as emotionally effective, I think it’s easier to keep track of an email correspondence. What do you think?

Ivan:
I think that a handwritten note is almost always better if you want to really stand out from the crowd. I am horrible at handwritten notes. I am much better than email for a number of reasons. I self edit myself. My handwriting’s not that good. So when I am writing, I really don’t want to say that; I want to say that. When you’re writing, you really can’t scratch it. You start over. I just find handwritten notes a little frustrating. I like programs like Send Out Cards, where you can send out an actual card to somebody.

I kind of think that the mail, Hallmark-like card or Send Out Cards are probably better, but the problem is if you don’t do it, it’s not better. So if you are not going to do that, email is fine and it certainly is the way I use most. I agree with Brian that, theoretically, a handwritten note is better if you can actually do it.

Priscilla:
Yeah, he’s big on that.

Ivan:
Yeah, So you want them to remember who you are. You want to invite them to something. Those are the people who you probably want to do that with.

Priscilla:
Yeah, that is a good idea. Okay, well, I think we have come to the end of this podcast.

Ivan:
That’s everything for this week. Next week we are going to talk about what is your excuse for not following up? I am going to give you some scripts that will make it easy for you in BNI and as a networked to be able to follow up more effectively. Thanks, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay great. Thank you, Dr. Misner. Well, I would just like to remind the listeners that this podcast has been brought to you by NetworkingNow.com, which is the leading site on the net for networking downloadables. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice, and we hope you will join us again next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.