What is the most important step you have to take to be successful in using networking as a marketing tool to grow your business? In my last article, I mentioned “The Seven Fatal Errors of Business Networking.”

Error Number 1: Not Following Up!

If you do not have a plan in place to follow up with the people you meet when you networking, you are better off not to go at all!

How many times have you attended an event in which you invested both your money and your time and met some really great contacts and came home and put the cards in a drawer or in a stack on your desk? All of us have done this and we wonder why networking has not paid off in terms of our business.

If you don’t have a system in place to follow up with each person you met, now in the New Year is a great time to create one. Your system can be as simple as a 3 x 5 card in an index box to a sophisticated contact management system. They all work when you use them.

Here are three easy steps to maximize your networking efforts.

A. Send a thank you note to each person you met and ask them how you can support them in growing their business. Don’t ask them to send you business.

B. Create a record of each person with all of their contact information and any person information you learned about them. For example, hobbies, married or single, kids etc.

C. Decide how frequently you want to contact this person and put it on your calendar. At a minimum, I have been most successful when I contact monthly.

When I sold real estate nothing was more depressing than getting something I mailed out to a client returned with a new forwarding address. And I was not the one who had worked with them in their move.

Doing business with people is all about the timing. Don’t give up on the follow up!

In my next article, I will be covering error number two which is “not having a contact management system.”

If you’re ready to jump-start your networking skills, make more money, and have more fun in your business, tune in to Motivational Monday's Marketing Tips, Networking For Success, It's All About You www.betheremagazine.com

Call 202-726-1541.