20. Pinging—All the Time
If 80 percent of success is, as Woody Allen once said, just showing up, then 80 percent of building and maintaining relationships is just staying in touch.
I call it "pinging." It's a quick, casual greeting, and it can be done in any number of creative ways. Once you develop your own style, you'll find it easier to stay in touch with more people than you ever dreamed of in less time than you ever imagined.
Yes, there's grunt work involved. Pinging takes effort. That's the tough part. You have to keep pinging and pinging and pinging and never stop. You have to feed the fire of your network or it will wither or die.
How many times have you asked yourself, "What's his face . . . Ya know, that guy . . . " Or "I know her, I just can't remember her name . . ." We all face that situation all too often, to my mind. Every time I hear those statements uttered, I sense a network or community of contacts withering.
These days we're overwhelmed with so much information that our minds can prioritize only the most recent data. What does it take to break through the white noise of information overload? Becoming front and center in someone's mental Rolodex is contingent on one invaluable little concept: repetition.
• People you're contacting to create a new relationship need to see or hear your name in at least three modes of communication—by, say, an e-mail, a phone call, and a face-to-face encounter—before there is substantive recognition.
• Once you have gained some early recognition, you need to nurture a developing relationship with a phone call or e-mail at least once a month.
• If you want to transform a contact into a friend, you need a minimum of two face-to-face meetings out of the office.
• Maintaining a secondary relationship requires two to three pings a year.
Using the above rules of thumb should give you an idea of what it'll take to keep your own network humming. I make hundreds of phone calls a day. Most of them are simply quick hellos that I leave on a friend's voice mail. I also send e-mail constantly. Using a BlackBerry, I've found I can do the majority of my pinging while in trains, planes, and automobiles. I remember—or at least my PDA remembers—personal events like birthdays and anniversaries, and I make a special point of reaching out to people during these times.
When it comes to relationship maintenance, you have to be on your game 24/7, 365 days a year.
There's no doubt you have to bring a certain vigor to this part of the system. But hey, this is just my way of doing things. You'll figure out your own way. The governing principle here is repetition; find a way to ensure that you'll contact people regularly without putting too much strain on your schedule.
One way I've found to make maintaining my network of contacts, colleagues, and friends easier is to create a rating system for the network that corresponds to how often I reach out. First, I divide my network into five general categories: Under "Personal," I include my good friends and social acquaintances. Because I'm generally in contact with these people organically, I don't include them on a contact list. The relationship is established, and when we talk, it's as if we'd been in touch every day. "Customers" and "Prospects" are self-explanatory. "Important Business Associates" is reserved for people I'm actively involved with professionally. I'm either doing business with them currently or hoping to do business with them. This is the mission-critical category. Under "Aspirational Contacts," I list people I'd like to get to know, or I've met briefly (which is anyone from your boss's boss to a worthy celebrity) and would like to establish a better relationship with.
After reading the chapter on taking names, you've probably already begun to segment and categorize your network in a way that works for you—there is no standard method here. Create a segmentation that works for you and your objectives. This is a good habit and one that deserves repeating. All successful people are planners. They think on paper. Failing to plan, as they say, is planning to fail. And a plan is a list of activities and names.
The next step is to print out your master list of contacts that contains all the people in your network under the categories you've placed them in. The question now is How often do you contact each person on the list? I use a pretty simple system, but there's no reason you can't improve upon it. I'll go down my master list and add the numbers 1, 2, or 3 next to each name.
A " 1 " gets contacted at least each month. This means I'm actively involved with the person, whether it's a friend or a new business associate. With new relationships, a " 1 " generally means I have yet to solidify the relationship with at least three different forms of communication. Each time I reach out to a person, I like to include a very short note next to their name telling me the last time I contacted them and how. If last month I sent an e-mail saying hello to a potential customer rated " 1 , " this month I'll give a call. Also, contacts designated " 1 " I add to my cell phone's speed dial. (How I love thee, speed dial, let me count the ways! It allows me quick reference and an easy way to get in touch fast.) If I have a free moment in a cab, I'll just go down the speed dial and make several calls to keep in touch with people I've not spoken to recently.
A "2" rating indicates my "touch base" people. These are either casual acquaintances or people whom I already know well. They get a quarterly call or e-mail. I try to include these people in mass e-mails about my business. And like the rest of my network, they get either an annual holiday card or birthday call.
Those people rated " 3 " are people I don't know well, who, because of time and circumstance, I'm unable to devote any significant energy to pinging. These people are strictly acquaintances, people I've met in passing, but who have found their way into my address book. I hope to reach this group, in some way, at least once a year. The surprising thing about this category is that, because you don't know the person all that well when you do reach out with a card or e-mail, the reaction is wonderful. Most people are delighted, and their curiosity piqued, when someone they don't know all that well sends them a note, however short.
The third step, as I mentioned in the chapter on taking names, is segmenting your network into call lists. In time, your master list will become too unwieldy to work from directly. Your call lists will save you time and keep your efforts focused. They can be organized by your number ratings, by geography, by industry, and so on. It's totally flexible. If I'm flying to New York, for example, I'll print out a "New York list" and make a few calls to my "Is" when I got off the plane. "Hi, Jan. Just landed in New York and it made me think of you. No time to meet this trip, but I just wanted to touch base." This New York list also proves very helpful a week in advance of the trip in trying to fill in those extra slots of time I may have in my schedule.
Where do I find the time? Again, you find time everywhere. I ping in the cab, or in my car. I ping in the bathroom (BlackBerry only). When I'm bored at a conference, I ping via e-mail. I've developed the habit of saving every e-mail I send and receive. I put each e-mail, when I receive it, in one of my categories, and Outlook records whether I've returned the e-mail or not. Then I just open up those files and respond, pinging away. I make a habit of reviewing my master list at the end of the week and crosschecking it with the activities and travel plans I have for the following week. In this way, I stay up-to-date and have my trusty lists at my side all week long.
Another time-saver is to pay close attention when you place your phone calls. There are times, amusingly enough, when I call in order NOT to get through. Sometimes you don't have time for an in-depth conversation; you just want to drop a line and say hello. I try and take mental notes of people's phone habits if I want to simply leave a message, I'll call when I know they're not around. Calling their office really early or late usually does the trick.