Field Guides / Sales
Referrals and networking hand you warm conversations, and most owners fail to follow through on them. Follow up every introduction and every event contact within days with a short personal message that opens with something they said and proposes one next step, and ask happy clients for referrals straight after they've told you why they hire you. Warm is a wasting asset.
Warm introductions and networking contacts go cold because they aren't followed up while they're still warm. The opens are easy, and the money leaks in the follow-through.
The opens look like a room full of contacts, a client introduction, a dozen cards from an expo. One member came back from a building industry expo with a dozen contacts, and twelve days or more later they were still sitting there. Another had introductions coming in from a networking group and from his own clients, and they sat the same way.
Owners chase cold outreach while warm introductions sit unanswered, because following up on a warm lead feels oddly more exposing: there's a relationship at stake. A warm conversation you don't follow up is worse than a cold one you never had, because it was yours to lose.
I split marketing into hunting and farming. Hunters hit the market hard, mostly with paid advertising, and rely on a percentage of people closing. Farmers stay in touch with prospects over time until they're ready to buy, and accept that it can take a long while. Referrals and networking are farming work.
The method for following up an introduction or an event contact is to capture each contact on the day, connect early, and send a short personal message within days. Five steps.
Copy and paste: the message after a warm introduction
Subject: [Introducer's first name] introduction
Thanks for the introduction, [introducer's first name].
Hi [first name], good to meet you. [Introducer] mentioned you're [what they're working on, in the introducer's words]. Before I suggest anything, one question: [one diagnostic question about what they're trying to solve].
I've got time for a 15-minute call on [day] at [time] or [day] at [time]. Which suits you better?
[Your name]
[Phone number]
Copy and paste: the message after meeting someone at an event
Subject: Good to meet you at [event]
Hi [first name], good to meet you at [event] on [day]. You mentioned [the specific thing they said: the project, the launch, the problem with the last supplier].
One question while it's fresh: [one diagnostic question about that project or problem]?
If it's worth a conversation, I can do 15 minutes on [day] at [time] or [day] at [time]. I've also sent you a connection request on LinkedIn so you can put a face to the name.
[Your name]
[Phone number]
Ask a happy client for a referral straight after they've told you, in their own words, why they hire you, so the request follows from what they've just said.
Joe Girard, the car salesman whose biggest source of business was referrals, called each customer within a week of a sale, asked for a referral if things were going well, and kept every message after that personal and useful, never a sales pitch.
Copy and paste: the referral ask to a past client
"Thanks for that, it means a lot. We're always looking to work with people just like you. You said some kind things there about [what they said, in their words]. Who in your network might be a good fit for the kind of work we did on [project]?"
[Wait for them to answer.]
"Would you be happy to introduce us over email?"
"Thank you, I really appreciate that."
When someone does introduce you, thank them with a short message written for that one person. When you stay in touch afterwards, send something useful with no sales message in it. If the person who referred you is also a client, the next thing you could do for them is covered in How to grow revenue from the clients you already have.
Copy and paste: the thank-you to a referrer
Subject: Thank you for the introduction to [first name]
Hi [referrer's first name],
Thank you for putting me in touch with [first name] at [company]. I appreciate you thinking of us.
[Your name]
Here's the expo from earlier, run twice: the way it went, and the same twelve contacts on the method. The second version is a plan, not a result.
The way it went. A dozen contacts from the expo, still sitting twelve days or more later.
The same expo on the method.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Expo day, before leaving | Twelve contacts written down, each with one thing they said |
| The first day if you can | Twelve LinkedIn connection requests, each mentioning the expo |
| Within days | Twelve messages, each opening with that contact's detail and ending with a question and two call times |
| The day the messages go | A date for the second touch booked against every contact |
The method fails in four predictable ways.
Follow up a warm contact within days, by hand, while they still remember the conversation.
The benchmark for each message: one specific detail from the conversation, one question, one next step with a day and a time on it.
Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?
What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.
List every warm introduction and networking contact from the last month that you haven't followed up. Next to each name, write the one thing they said. Send the first three messages today, using the copy blocks above, and book a date for the rest.
One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.
Questions like these come up regularly on our weekly Elite Boardroom calls. If you'd like someone to hold you to account each week, and to learn from a group of peers who run video businesses too, the Boardroom is for you.
Related tools and guides. How to write a follow-up email that gets a reply, How to grow revenue from the clients you already have, How to qualify a video lead before you pitch, How to show real authority on a sales call.