Second time lucky!

http://bit.ly/1dl1BX3

I'm sure you have been in this situation before : you reach out to someone for a meeting. And it could be for a variety of reasons : to explore career opportunities, to discuss a business proposal, or just to get formally acquainted.

And you most likely have been introduced by a common friend/ acquaintance and you have sent a mail or an SMS to the person you want to meet. But you don't get any response.

What do you do?

Well, let me tell you what happens from my perspective.

I get a lot of mails with people reaching out to me directly or through references. Most people are reaching out because they are looking for jobs, and some reach out for career advice.

But there are days when I clearly am not able to respond to all the mails that hit my inbox. And I have noticed, that if I haven't managed to respond to the mail on the day I received it, then its very likely that the mail slips between the cracks and disappears into my mail archives without any action. Now its not that I don't want to respond to them (though there are some mails which I clearly would love to ignore!).

Now, here's the interesting thing. If any of these individuals send me another mail after a few days to check with me if I had received their last mail, there is a very good chance that I will immediately respond!

But most people don't follow up. Which means that they have assumed that they have reached a dead-end with me. But that's not true!

Some people tell me that they don't feel comfortable writing because they don't want to come across as 'desperate' or too eager. Which is a fair point. But most of us know when we are being reasonable in expecting a response, and when we cross that line and start 'hounding' instead.

And some people feel offended when they don't get a response and feel that they shouldn't follow up at all because of this. But by taking this stand, they eventually lose out on a possible relevant, fruitful conversation.

Whenever you write a mail, you have a purpose in mind. And if that purpose is not fulfiled, the effort has gone waste. Sometimes, it takes that extra effort of writing a follow-up mail for the effort to bear fruit.

Start writing those follow-up mails, and you will be pleasantly surprised at the number of responses you get! :)