A Networking Story: It’s Amazing What Can Come Out Of One Great Meeting

January 11, 2012 / in General Information / by Mic Johnson

I want to share an email I received from someone I recently met at a networking event one evening. After the event, I sent him a personalized LinkedIn connection invitation. He replied back and suggested we get together again to learn more about each other and about our respective businesses.

So, as is often the case, I suggested we meet at one of my favorite spots, The Blue Moose, in Prairie Village. (It’s the perfect spot for me. It’s close to home. It’s got BLUE in the name. And it’s where Jason and I first talked about working together.)

We had a great conversation, sharing life and business experiences, talking about the way we believe business should be done, and talking about how we might work together. Later that day, I followed up with an email thanking him for the time and I shared a couple of blog articles that I thought he’d enjoy (I’m Just Trying To Get Away From People That Suck and 10 Reasons Why Your Business Should NOT Be On LinkedIn)

He replied back and told me that he printed off both articles and handed them out in his latest sales meeting. He also said he talked to his boss about the possibility of hiring me to do some LinkedIn training together soon.

A few minutes later he sent me another email that made my day…heck, made my week. I want to share it with you now. My honest and sincere hope is that you think about this entire interaction as I’ve described it and see what business lessons (of which there are many) you can take from this story and apply in your own personal and professional lives.

As always, thanks for reading and supporting Blue Gurus. Ok, here’s the email:

“I forgot to mention in my last email, that I implemented one of your concepts today with my sales manager and it worked to perfection. I won’t go into a long story via email (I’ll tell you more the next time we are together), but essentially my manager came to me today asking how he should “spin” a controversial situation to the rest of our sales team because he was worried about how they would react. I thought about my answer before responding to him, and then I told him about meeting you and how important it is to be open with employees and communicate with them as opposed to putting blinders on or avoiding certain topics.

So I asked him, “Why can’t we just have a professional conversation with them, explain the situation, ask them if they have any concerns, and address them right then and there?” He took my advice (actually your advice), had the tough conversation with the team, it went over very well, they seemed to appreciate the direct approach, all questions were immediately addressed, and then we moved on. It was amazing how effective that approach was, as opposed to the old “politically correct” tap dancing approach that corporate and management usually takes. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you thank you and your techniques work!”