E Tips

Last week, I shared about making more professional connections.

But once you’ve met new people, the whole idea of keeping in touch can fill you with a sense of dread, guilt or fear if you don’t have the right strategies in place.

To help you out, here are 8 Tips on Effectively Keeping in Touch:

1. Remember that you don’t need to keep in touch with everyone. It’s OK to sort through business cards at the end of a networking event and to decide who to follow up with for further discussion.

2. You don’t need to keep in touch with everyone on the same frequency. It’s good to have a few people that you connect with more regularly, but it’s fine to cultivate other relationships on a 3-, 6- or 12-month basis.

3. Use social media to your advantage by sharing news and reading updates without having to reach out to people on an individual basis.

4. Even if you don’t own a business, you may want to consider sending out a mass e-mail to people every 6 months to a year. These kind of contacts could include past employers, old school friends or people who you met at conferences. Add them immediately to a group e-mail list (once you have their permission of course!). Then put a reminder to send the e-mail in your calendar and/or have it correspond with a memory cue like the anniversary of your business or January 1 or your birthday.

5. For the people you want to connect with more often, consider setting up a recurring weekly phone call or lunch meeting so that spending time with them is naturally built into your schedule. If a recurring event won’t work, decide on your next meeting day and time at the end of each time you have together.

6. Typically mentors or advisers can best offer you support on a monthly or quarterly basis. For these individuals, I recommend setting up either a recurring event at the correct frequency or setting your next time to talk at the end of each conversation (do you notice a pattern? )

7. If you’re working on a particular type of project where you may need help or advice in the future, set up a place where you collect names and notes about individuals who could assist with that topic. I keep my list in a simple “People to Help with Book” Word document, but you can keep yours in any note taking tool.

8. When people tell you to reach out to them when you’re in their geographic area, add them to a list of people in a particular city or put a searchable location note or tag on their profile in your contact management system. That way when you plan a trip, you can quickly and easily know who you could potentially visit.

Here’s to keeping in touch–without stressing out!

To your brilliance!
Elizabeth

About Real Life E

Elizabeth Grace Saunders is the founder and CEO of Real Life E® a time coaching and training company that empowers individuals who feel guilty, overwhelmed and frustrated to feel peaceful, confident and accomplished through an exclusive Schedule Makeover™ process. She is an expert on achieving more success with less stress. Real Life E® also increases employee productivity, satisfaction and work/life balance through custom training programs.

McGraw Hill is publishing Elizabeth’s first book in January 2013 to help you keep your time management resolutions: The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment: How to Achieve More Success With Less Stress.

Elizabeth has appeared in Inc magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes and on NBC and is a monthly contributor to the99Percent.com blog on productivity for creative professionals. She was selected as one of the Top 25 Amazing Women of 2010 by Stiletto Woman and as a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Council featured inThe New York Times, The Huffington Post, Mashable, and many other media outlets.

Elizabeth’s time coaching clients have the opportunity to go through her exclusive Schedule Makeover™ life transformation process through phone coaching and custom action guides or in-person training.