This brings up a key point many people struggle with . . . how to build relationship(s) with newly acquired contact(s). This is an important area that I have focused on for the past four years, and I’m pleased to say I have made a lot of progress.

I used to try to identify who were the right people for me to invest time and energy on to build my relationships. I found this strategy to be very difficult–given the large number of people I meet on a regular basis. I also wanted to identify influential people, so I could focus on them. The problem is – I soon found out many of the “self-proclaimed” influential people were quite self-centered and weren’t particularly interested in developing a mutually beneficial relationship. I also discovered there were people who I hadn’t initially considered to be influential–who turned out to be quite the opposite.

So I flipped the paradigm. Instead of trying to identify the right people, I now let them do this step for themselves.

For example, I did a presentation yesterday where I met over 25 people. As a result six people contacted me within 48 hours. I will be focusing on building relationships with these six individuals. They have already indicated through their actions a desire to move forward and develop a connection with me.

That’s a great starting point!