Cultivating Lucrative Contacts Requires A Few Memory 'Tricks'

How was it for you?

The Financial Technology Show, that is.

Even though I am writing this column well before the event, I know that it will have been a resounding success for me.

I know that I will have met several useful contacts – some old, some new – and come away from the event with several opportunities to follow up on for my own business.

I also know that, within the next six months or so, I’ll ‘bump into’ some of the people I meet there and that I’ll be able to recognize them, remember their name, the company they are with, and what they do.

How can I sit here and know all this? I am a conceited little Brit who’s full of his own importance?

Well, those of you who know me, I hope would jump to my defence.

The reason I can safely predict these events is because they have happened before. Many times before.

And the reason that I know this to be true is that I spend time working at it.

You see, you never know whom you might meet at such events; a future spouse, a future supplier, client, employer, even a future employee.

The ‘trick’ for want of a better word, is to be thoroughly prepared.

So, how can I confidently predict that I’ll remember someone I may have spent five minutes with six months ago and know their name, company, what they do and other such useful stuff?

It’s because I go to these events fully prepared.

I make notes about someone whom I have just met on the reverse of their business card, telling me something I would otherwise forget about them.

I sometimes take a tape recorder and discretely dictate myself a few notes between meetings, or (a really useful one to remember) I’ll use my cell phone to call my own voice mail and record notes about people I’ve just met.

Sometimes I’ll get back to my office to hear ‘You have thirty-seven new messages’ and think, wow, my marketing’s really working, only to find that thirty-two of them were from me, getting carried away on my cell at the event I have just returned from!

But the information I retain and then enter into my database can be priceless.

And how is this useful to you, in managing your career?

Sometimes it doesn’t, but when it does, it usually pays off big time.

Let me give you an example…

You met a representative from a small local company exhibiting at an event. You showed interest in their product, maybe even booked a demonstration at your office.

Who knows, maybe you even bought the product.

Six months later, that company decides to look around for a new firm of accountants.

They say ‘What goes around, comes around’ and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Maybe, just maybe, that company approaches your firm and invites you to meet with them to discuss their needs.

You walk into the meeting to meet the owner, and sat by her side is the guy you were talking with six months ago at a trade show (or some other event).

He is no longer a senior sales person, but the General Manager of the company.

How do you think that meeting is going to go (assuming that you remember them, and they remember you, and that you had a good experience with them earlier)?

THAT’s why preparation for such events can have an influential effect on your career path.

A little time and thought can go a long way.

Season’s Greeting to all readers of ‘The Bottom Line’. See you all next year!

© 2004, MFA Group Inc