Build on your connections – staying in touch

Here’s the last in this series of BMC posts. If you haven’t read the previous posts, you might want to read about BMC = Build Meaningful Connections as well as details about making C = connections then how to make them M = meaningful and we’ll close off with the B = Build on those connections.

You might have been luck to make the connection meaningful. Lightning struck and you are now new best friends. But most of the time that doesn’t happen. And something meaning takes time. So before you part, get some contact information. Add them to your social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. The build the connection.

Reconnect and follow-up

This might seem straight forward, and in my experience, it’s what is missed the most. Too many are networking to build short term transactional relationships. Versus going for a longer term more meaningful relationship. And I get it, building relationships takes time; but it’s not hard. And if you spend the effort now to stay connected, if you actually have to ask for a favor, then they’d be much more willing to do so.

The fact is that we forget. In school you saw them every day so it was easy to stay connected. But once you go your separate ways, then you have to make much more effort to reconnection. So setting up reminders will be helpful. Go do it now. I mean it. Set a calendar invite with a reminder to pop up in 5 years with a recurrence every 5 years. On the reminder, include the names and contact information of the people you want to stay in touch with. Then when the reminder pops up in 5 years, actually reach out to those people and see what you’ve been missing and how could you add value to them.

Give them an update

If you connect with a mentor and they give you advice to follow: make sure you do it. You might not have completed it, but at least you considered it. You read that book they suggested. Attended that meeting. Messaged that person. Did X, Y, Z. I hate it when I reconnect with someone whom I previously gave a lot of advice, only to have them never doing any of it.

Build Meaningful Connections

In any case, go out there and build meaningful connections! You’ll thank yourself (or me) that you did!

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