Six Simple Steps to Nailing Your Post-GDC Follow Ups

Jay realized he probably wasn't the best "employee" any longer after leading his first start up for three years so he decided to do it again.  He founded The Powell Group in 2010 and the team has grown steadily since. If it has to do with a contract or expanding your network in the industry, he and his team can probably help at www.powellgroupconsulting.com

The show is over and you've caught up on some of your sleep.  Like many others leaving San Francisco you probably feel as if the show went wonderfully and you are on top of the world.  Today we're going to walk you through how you deal with putting yourself in the best position to do just that.

Step 1: Collect your cards and notes from the show.  Go through all of them and sort them into three piles.  You want a set that needs to be followed up on immediately and a stack that can wait a few days.  The first stack should only consist of meetings where you had an immediate next step defined and the partner is waiting on you.  The second stack are the companies that you met with or ran into at the show and the immediate next step hasn't been defined.  The third pile are all the show guides, company directories, etc that you picked up at the show.  You didn't meet with these companies (or they would be in the first or second stack) but you now know they exist and you need to enter them into your system.

Step 2: Enter all of your cards and notes, from the first two stacks, into your CRM.  If you don't have a CRM, you need to get one.  ASAP.  In the worst case you can work from a spreadsheet, but I would highly recommend a true CRM solution.  They aren't even that expensive anymore.  I'm partial to Contactually and Nutshell, but Sugar, Capsule, and Insightly are also popular options.  Using Evernote's premium level has a great card scanner you can use to make this go a bit smoother.  They let you pay month to month so I frequently subscribe for months I have conferences to attend to take advantage of the feature.

Step 3: Define the next steps from each card or meeting.  What did you tell the other person you would do when you returned to the office?  Were you going to send them more information, introduce them to someone, send a proposal perhaps?  This is where you need to outline that and the meeting notes in general from the show.  

Step 4: Set your follow up reminders.  This is where you'll need to refer to your earlier stacks.  Your immediately follow ups (the first stack), should be set up for no later than the week after the show.  Schedule your second stack of cards for the second week.  You don't want to follow up too quickly.  The first day or two back from a show everyone is going to be catching up and their inbox is going to be overflowing.  You don't want your email to get lost in that shuffle.  Rarely are you going to have a situation where you absolutely HAVE to follow up that next day.  GDC ended last Friday, I usually do my urgent follow ups on the first Wednesday back.

Step 5: Catch up on the news you missed.  Shows are crazy, you're seeing a lot and running all over the place. You miss things, it's just a reality.  I for one didn't know there was going to be a 4th Rock Band game until I was on the flight home.  Take some time to review the news from the show and add any new companies you may see to your third stack of information.  If a company announced something that you are interested in or that presents an opportunity for you, go ahead and schedule a call or email in your CRM at this point.  

Step 6: Enter your third stack.  Now take all those random connections and information you found and put them in your CRM.  If there is something worth checking in on, schedule it now.  Otherwise it could very well fall through the cracks.  

Finally... EXECUTE!  I'm a stickler for lists and scheduling.  I make sure all of these points are in my system because frankly it makes things easier and you don't get overwhelmed.  Take each day post-show one day at a time.  Do what you said you would do and nurture those relationships.  

Best of luck!