Following Up: Warm up your cold networking contacts
Life is busy. This often means that you don’t always have time to keep on top of your professional network and it is inevitable that your relationships with some of the people in your network will go cold. When I talk about going cold I mean that you have had no contact for several months (!) perhaps even longer.
While we advocate staying in regular contact there will inevitably be a point that you will need to get back in touch to warm up a contact and rebuild and repair your relationship with them.
Start by getting up to date
With tools like LinkedIn, it is easy to do a quick check on what your contact is currently doing and/or what they currently need. Use this as a starting point to reach out (with no agenda) to just catch up with them. This can be particularly useful if they have gone through a recent change in job/role etc. You can reach out to find out all about them.
Accept the blame for the lack of contact
Be honest, apologise and accept the blame for falling out of touch. If they have been good at contacting you, but you have ignored them — then a proper apology is definitely going to be needed.
Make it all about them
However, it is important to not just get in touch because you need something. It is important to start building your relationship with them again before you need something. Be selfless and make it all about them. They are busy people too.
Examples of things that you can do might include: invite them to a lunch or an event, make an introduction, send them an article etc
If all else fails – Christmas is a great time to get back in touch – so get planning!
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