Pleasure To Meet You

After attending any business event, open networking, conference or anywhere where you meet people for the first time it would be a crime not to follow up. Yet so many people do not. Last week I went to a business forum event where I met someone for the second time. The first occasion had been at a speed networking event two months ago.

So I said hello and in return I got that slightly embarrassed but friendly look you get form someone who thinks they ought to know you. After we chatted for 5 minutes I was asked; "How come you remember me and I can't place you? It's really embarrassing."

Well I gave two reasons. Firstly I used to be a teacher and therefore had to train myself to learn 240 names at a time at the start of a school year.

The second is the pleasure to meet you e-mail. Any time you go to a networking event as soon as you get back, sit down with a pile of business cards you collected. Go through them and split them into two piles. In the first pile put the cards of the people who you can definitely remember something about. n the second put those cards where you are struggling to remember anything. Go back to the second pile later something will always crop up in your memory bank.

Then write an individual pleasure to meet you e-mail. make sure its not template, include a detail that you remember about the person and leave it at that. This is not the time to ask for a follow up meeting ( unless agreed in principal at the event). Nor is it the time to say "Please join my LinkedIn network". Just say "Nice to meet you", leaving the door open to who knows what may happen