In his book, Never Eat Alone, master networker Keith Ferrazi talks about the value of keeping in touch with your network via pings. What he means is that you need to reach out to all of your network nodes on a consistent basis to keep your network alive and well.
I’ve found that a periodic review of my email folders or my personal address book is good business. I go back a few months and look at ongoing threads and send notes letting them know I’m thinking of them. I find contacts in my address book that have fallen off my radar (or I’ve fallen off theirs). Sometimes I give them a quick two sentence blurb about what I’m working on. If you do ten of these a week on a regular basis, you’ll be surprised how much activity comes from it.
Much like a good ad campaign that stays in your line of sight, pinging your network is good marketing. It’s like shaking a tree. Take one hour tomorrow to ping ten people that you haven’t talked to in two months. You can either look through previous email threads or just go through your address book.
Unlrelated, but important: When is the last time you’ve added to your address book? Do you have a Save For Address book folder in your email program to quickly store emails with vital contact information for later? Your network is your networth. Grow your address book entries and put them to frequent use.
Recommended read: Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazi
