Staying in touch with people as your personal network grows

The message below came to me from a recent college graduate who I met through one of my longtime friends a couple of months ago. My friend connected the two of us because we both have pretty sizable networks and work very hard to keep them going. This post is all about how to, not only build one’s network, but also stay in touch with folks to ensure that the network stays “real”.

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KW wrote:

Hey Marquis,

Thank you again for making the time for lunch with Adam and I last week. It was a pleasure to finally meet “the legend,” a name you’ve rightfully earned yourself in the KLLC.

I had one more question for you in regards to your personal social network – how do you find time to stay in touch with people? It’s a problem I’ve struggled with since High School and I can only see it getting worse.

Best,

— KW

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My response:

Hey KW,

Great question about managing your personal network, specifically finding time to stay in touch with people. As Herm likely told you, I am connected to a LOT of people (probably somewhere around 2,100 Facebook friends and 1,700 LinkedIn connections) and I’ve actually met in person or at least talked on the phone to around 90% of people. My network is crazy wide and goes pretty deep.

Part of the reason for this is my natural inclination toward being social (despite my terrible social anxiety). The bigger reason is that I realized in college that, as a kid who grew up broke in the country in Virginia, I would need to rely on relationships to get ahead due to the lack of connections with which other folks were born. I took that revelation to heart and it has guided the way that I’ve lived ever since.

Many people under-invest in relationships, but I would literally have a different life right now if it weren’t for people in my network. That said, staying in touch with people is super hard when you know as many folks as I do. From the sound of it, you might be on the way to having the same problem as me, so I’m glad that you’re getting ahead of the issue.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty bad at staying in good contact with people on a regular basis. I used to be really good at it in my 20s, but, as I’ve gotten busier in my career over the years and my network has grown, it has become more and more difficult to devote the proper amount of attention to fostering the personal and professional relationships with people that I don’t see on a regular basis. I’ve come up with some techniques that have been incredibly helpful in making an attempt to keep up as time and distance impacts my ability to have direct contact as often as I’d like:

• When you know as many people as I do, it takes work to stay up to date with what’s going on in their lives, but, with social media, I’m able to keep up with friends, family members, and colleagues happenings and major life events. I don’t get to check Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites very often, but, when I do, I try to make it useful. If I see on Facebook that it’s someone’s birthday, I try to shoot them a text message or an email to wish them well. If someone shows up with a new job on LinkedIn, I’ll try to send a message of some kind to congratulate them. If someone expresses worry or distress over something on Facebook, I’ll send them a message just to see if they’re OK. I know that this isn’t much, but taking the time to keep up with people’s lives can go a really long way.

• Whenever I have to travel to a given city for work, I always try to meet up with at least one friend for breakfast, lunch, coffee, or dinner. If possible, I try to set up multiple meet-ups with folks just to allow myself time to reconnect with more people on a single trip. It’s become more difficult to do this in recent months because I get very little free time during my work travel, but I still set it as a goal of mine to at least try.

• Whenever my phone rings and I see that it is a friend of mine, I always answer if I’m in the position to do so, especially if I haven’t spoken to the person in a while. This can sometimes be tough when I’m in the middle of a meal, doing work, or just plain vegging out at a long day/week of work, but, if someone has gone through the effort to check in on me, I owe it to them to pick up. I’m fortunate that I have friends who are willing to call me to check in since I’m so friggin’ bad at making check-in calls myself.

• When I receive an email from a friend, I try to respond to it as quickly as possible (usually within a few hours), which can sometimes be tough with as many emails as I receive on a daily basis. Like the other items on this list, it may seem like a small thing, but you’d be amazed at how much of an impact it can have in keeping relationships active.

I hope my comments above are helpful, even if they’re not too specific. When it comes to having a network as large as mine, one had to be somewhat creative when it comes to relationship management.

Marquis