How Do I Follow Up After a Networking Event?

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Do I Follow Up After a Networking Event?

How do I follow up after a networking event is the question that decides whether a good conversation becomes a professional relationship — or quietly becomes nothing. The answer: write about them, not you.

Farida had forty business cards in a drawer and a follow-up email she'd rewritten four times and never sent. This is the story of the email that arrived from someone else, what it did differently, and the eleven she sent in the fortnight that followed — nine of which were answered.

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Get the Client — Professional Self-Coaching for Networking and Building Professional Relationships Tell the Three Stories That Reveal How You Think, What You've Learnt and What Drives Your Work — and Why That Makes People Want to Work With You

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The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com

Transcript

Speaker 0:08

Farida was good in the room. She was curious about people. She asked real questions. She left every event with the feeling that something had actually happened. Then she got home, and nothing had. Forty business cards in a drawer. And a follow-up email she had rewritten four times and never sent. "Great to meet you. It would be lovely to keep in touch — do let me know if I can ever be helpful.” Polite. True. And completely worthless. Welcome to WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife. I'm Carmel O' Reilly. And today's episode is How Do I Follow Up After a Networking Event? — the question that decides whether a good conversation becomes a professional relationship, or quietly becomes nothing. This story is about Farida. And about three drafts, three weeks, and the email that arrived from someone else — the one that did the thing hers never had. Forty Cards Farida was thirty-eight, an architect, and good at the part everyone finds hard. She was good in the room. She'd stopped dreading these evenings years ago — she was curious about people, she asked real questions, and she left with the feeling that something had actually happened. Then she got home, and nothing had. The cards went into a drawer. Not immediately — first they went onto the desk, in a small hopeful pile, next to the laptop where the follow-up emails were going to be written. She had drafted one that week. She'd drafted one three times, in fact, to the same person: a developer she had talked to for forty minutes about a difficult site, a conservation officer, and a scheme that had been refused twice. "Great to meet you at the RIBA evening. It would be lovely to keep in touch — do let me know if I can ever be helpful." She read it back. It was polite, and it was true, and it was completely worthless. It said nothing. It asked for nothing. It gave nothing. She could have sent it to any of the forty. She deleted it and started again. "I really enjoyed our conversation. I'd love to explore ways we might work together..." Worse. Now she sounded like she wanted something. The third version was longer, and by the time she'd finished it she was so embarrassed by it that she closed the laptop. Three weeks later the draft was still there. And the conversation — the good one, the real one, the forty minutes about the difficult site — had quietly become nothing at all. What Someone Else Sent Her The email that changed how Farida followed up was one she received. It came from a structural engineer she'd spoken to at a conference, two days after they'd met. "You mentioned the roof on the community centre — the one where the client wants the vaulted ceiling and the budget wants trusses. I remembered a project we did in Bristol with the same argument. The compromise we found is attached — it's not beautiful, but the client thought it was, which turned out to be the same thing. Might be useful, might not. Good to meet you." That was it. No pleasantries about keeping in touch. No exploring ways to work together. No mention of what he did, or what he was looking for, or why she should remember him. He had listened to her problem, and he had sent her something for it. Farida sat looking at the email for a long time. Then she got out the drawer full of cards. Why Follow-Ups Fail Almost every follow-up email fails for the same reason: it's about the sender. Great to meet you. I'd love to keep in touch. Here's what I do. Let me know if I can help. Every line of it, however warmly meant, points back at the person writing it — and it arrives in an inbox belonging to someone who has forty other things to do that morning and no particular reason to reply. It also asks for something, even when it's careful not to. Let's keep in touch is a request for a relationship, in advance, from someone who hasn't yet given a reason for one. The engineer's email asked for nothing. It gave something. And it proved, in its first sentence, the thing that actually matters: he had listened. That is what a follow-up is for. Not to remind them you exist — they know you exist; you were standing right there. It's to demonstrate, in writing, the one thing that turns a pleasant conversation into a professional relationship: this person was paying attention to me, and thought about my problem afterwards. The good news for anyone who dreads writing these: it makes the email far easier to write, because you stop trying to be impressive and simply be useful. What Farida Sent Instead She started with the developer — the difficult site, the conservation officer, the twice-refused scheme. "You said the objection was always the roofline, and that you'd stopped fighting it. There's a scheme in Norwich that got through on a very similar site, and the trick was that they lowered the ridge and gained the volume underground — the conservation officer never had to concede anything. Link below, in case it's useful. The thing you said about the second refusal teaching you more than the first has stayed with me. It's exactly what happened to us on a chapel conversion — the second refusal was the one that finally told us what they'd really been objecting to all along. But I've never found a way to say that to a client without it sounding like I'm making excuses for losing a year. Anyway — good to meet you." Look at what that email does. It references his problem specifically. It gives him something concrete he can use. And it hands back something of hers — a real difficulty, honestly stated, with no attempt to sound accomplished about it. He replied within an hour. Not about the Norwich scheme. About the chapel. They met for coffee a month later, and the coffee became a piece of work eight months after that. But that isn't quite the point of the story. The point is that Farida sent eleven emails like that in the following fortnight — eleven, from a drawer full of forty cards — and got nine replies. She had never had a reply rate like it in her life. Because she had stopped writing to be remembered, and started writing to be useful. How to Follow Up: What Farida's Story Shows Open with them, not you. The first sentence should be about their problem, in their words, from the conversation you actually had. If you can't write that sentence, you weren't listening — and no amount of warmth in the second sentence will fix it. Send something, however small. A link, a name, an approach that worked, a thing to watch out for. It doesn't have to be impressive. It has to be for them. Ask for nothing. Not a meeting, not a call, not "ways we might work together." Give them something useful, and let them decide what happens next. The follow-up that gets answered is the one that wanted nothing back. Hand back something honest. The chapel — the difficulty Farida still hadn't solved. That's what turned an email into a conversation, because it made her a person rather than a service. Send it within days, not weeks. Not because of some rule about momentum, but because the specifics fade — and the specifics are the entire value of the thing. You Already Have What the Email Needs You Already Have What the Email Needs Farida wasn't short of material. She had forty conversations in a drawer, and in every one of them, someone had told her about a problem they were carrying. What she'd been missing wasn't charm, or the right formula. It was the understanding that the follow-up is not a piece of self-promotion at all. It's the second half of a conversation someone was generous enough to start with you. And notice what made her email work — because it wasn't the Norwich scheme. It was the chapel. The failure she handed back: the second refusal, the year it cost, the thing she still hadn't worked out how to say to a client. That is what he replied to. That is what made her a person rather than a service — and it was already hers, sitting in twelve years of work, unused. The follow-up is only ever as good as the conversation it follows. And what makes a conversation worth following up is the same thing that makes an email worth answering: something true about how you think, what you've learnt, and why you do this — offered plainly, and asking for nothing. Yours are there in the same way — in every genuinely good conversation you've had, and let quietly disappear. CLOSING That's today's story — How Do I Follow Up After a Networking Event? And if you want to go deeper, my second Professional Self-Coaching resource — Get the Client, for networking and building professional relationships — is there when you're ready. All the details and links are in the show notes, or you can find everything at www.schoolofworklife.com. Remember: Write about them, not you. Send something useful, ask for nothing, and let them decide what happens next. Thank you for listening.