So you've just finished a great Zoom session with someone who you know could send you business. Yet then months pass by and nothing happens. Why is this? The error of your ways is in follow-up.

That's right, follow-up is where all the money is. I'm going to show you how you can follow up today. I'm gonna give you the five steps that make all the difference.

You gotta join me for this episode of The Inside BS Show. Hey now, it's Dave Lorenzo. I'm the Godfather of Growth and this is your secret weapon.

Follow-up is the key to success in business development, especially with networking. So here are the five steps you need to know in order to follow up effectively. Step number one, while you're still in the presence of the other person, so if you're a member of a networking group like Provisors and you're networking with someone on Zoom or you just finished an in-person meeting, whip out your phone and immediately email the person your contact info.

You can use the old school vCard, which is a card in Microsoft Outlook or you can copy your signature file or just send an email and in the text of the email saying, here's my contact info and your signature file is in there or just paste your information into an email and send it to someone. Do it while you're in front of them or immediately after your meeting ends. Why am I telling you to do this? This way, they have the information in front of them while they're still thinking about you.

So step number one, email your contact info as soon as possible. Step number two, and this is powerful, it's called a handwritten note. And so here's my handwritten note card.

You'll see the front of my handwritten note card looks just like the cover of my latest book. Inside is blank. On the back, I have my name, my phone number and my email address.

And then inside, I just write a little note. It was great speaking with you. I enjoyed meeting with you Friday, December 12th.

I look forward to catching up with you again soon. After I write that card, I take a standard business card and I write on the back of the business card the day and time that we first met. I put the business card inside the handwritten note and then I take the whole thing and slide it into an envelope.

And once it's in the envelope, I seal the envelope and then I take a pen and I hand write the address. Why do I do it by hand? Because handwriting the note, handwriting the address shows that I've taken the time and that I care about this person enough to write down all the information by hand. It's an extra step.

I go the extra mile and it really demonstrates that I care. Then I take a stamp. This is a postage stamp.

Here in the US, we put the stamp on the front of the envelope. It's already addressed. I put it in the mail.

And the person gets it in a couple of days. Now, why handwritten notes? Why are they so important? Well, I alluded to it a second ago. It shows that you care.

It's an extra effort. You're going the extra mile and it really makes a difference. Why? Well, because number one, nobody's doing it.

Number two, people actually open their mail. Email, yeah, people open it, but sometimes it gets stuck in a junk folder or spam folder. Sometimes it's hard for them to find the email.

Regular mail gets through. It's highly personal, especially when you're handwriting it and it's impressive. So step number two is write the handwritten note.

Step number three, within two weeks of that first meeting, you should make an introduction to the person you just had a networking event with. If you're doing five networking events a week, that's five introductions you're gonna make. What does this mean? Now, you can make an introduction to a person who can immediately do business with them.

So if you're making an introduction to an intellectual property attorney, you have somebody who has a patent and the patent needs to be filed and the person is really looking forward to getting their invention protected, that's a direct referral. If you wanna make an introduction of a strategic referral, let's say you have an intellectual property attorney and you're going to connect them with a corporate transactional attorney, the corporate transactional attorney could refer somebody else. So the referral is one generation away.

I call that a strategic referral. Both introductions are good because they're both going to help the people you're introducing. So within two weeks of that meeting, you must make an introduction because again, that keeps you top of mind with the person you just met.

That's step three, within two weeks, make an introduction. Step number four, put the person you just met on your weekly email newsletter list and tell them. They're going to get a weekly email newsletter from you.

Say, listen, I write a newsletter to my contact list. Every week, I write a weekly email newsletter. I'd like to add you to that contact list so that you stay top of mind with me and I stay top of mind with you.

Would you mind receiving a weekly email newsletter from me? You can always unsubscribe at any point. They say fine, you put them on your list. You start to email them along with everybody else on your list once a week.

You write them interesting, informative, entertaining newsletters. They get your weekly email newsletter. They enjoy it.

They remember who you are. They refer you business eventually. The fifth and final step is a monthly print newsletter.

You write a standard letter, four pages maybe, and you put it in an envelope and you send it out every month to your top 100, your top 500, your top 1,000 contact. Everybody you network with goes on that newsletter list and once they're on that newsletter list, they get your monthly written newsletter. Now, why are you doing written and email? For the same reason you did a handwritten note card.

When they receive that email, when they receive that written newsletter in the mail in an envelope, it triggers their memory. Wow, this is the guy who sent me the handwritten card. This is also the person who sends me a weekly email newsletter.

This is the person who introduced me to that strategic referral. I remember the networking event. I need to get ready to send him something because I want him to help me like he's helping all these other people that he's written about in his newsletter.

Your monthly newsletter should highlight a client profile. It should talk about what you're currently doing. It should give something of value.

It should be interesting and entertaining. I've done several videos and I'll link to a video at the end of this video on newsletter topics and how powerful newsletters can be. This is how to follow up after networking.

I want you to start doing this five-step process right now because there's more money in this than in anything else you'll do. All right, I promised you a newsletter video to follow up on this about topic, tone, and timing of newsletters. That's filling in right below me.

Right below me right now, watch this next video. I will see you there.