We've all been there: you meet someone promising at a networking event, exchange cards, send a thoughtful follow-up email... and hear nothing back. Or worse, you follow up once, twice, three times, and still get silence.
Here's the first thing to remember: it's not all about you.
When someone doesn't respond, it's tempting to spiral into a story about what you did wrong. Was your email too pushy? Not compelling enough? Did you come across as desperate? But the truth is, you have almost no visibility into what's happening on the other end. They might be buried in deadlines, dealing with a family emergency, going through a reorganization at work, or simply someone who lets email pile up for weeks at a time. Their silence is a reflection of their bandwidth and priorities in that moment — not a verdict on your worth or your pitch.
This reframe matters because it protects you from two bad outcomes: taking rejection personally, and over-correcting by following up too aggressively in an attempt to "fix" something that was never broken in the first place.
Which brings us to the second, more actionable point: if you want follow-up to actually work, you have to be selective. Selective in where you go — are there likely to be people there you actually want to meet? And in who to follow up with?
Many networkers operate on a randomized model — collect as many contacts as possible, then follow up with everyone, hoping some percentage sticks. I wore myself out early in my networking career with this, and not much came of it. Spending limited follow-up energy on people I didn't actually care about stretched me too thin to nurture the relationships that might matter.
Instead, try this: after any networking event, pick two or three people — not twenty — who you genuinely want to know better. People whose work excites you, whose perspective you value, or who you sense could become a real collaborator or friend. Then put real thought into following up with them specifically.
Once I figured this out, I hit on the quiet magic of this approach: when you are intentional, people can feel your real enthusiasm. A follow-up that says "I've been thinking about what you said about X" lands very differently than a generic "great meeting you." And when your follow-up is thoughtful, specific, and genuinely tailored to that person, they're far more likely to feel similarly and reciprocate.
Selective follow-up isn't about doing less networking — it's about doing networking that actually works. Fewer, better relationships beat a long list of cold contacts every time. So the next time you leave an event with a stack of business cards, resist the urge to follow up with all of them. Choose the two or three who genuinely intrigued you, and give them your full attention.
Now it may not click right away, and here is where consistency really pays off. If you have a follow-up plan or sequence, you'll stay top of mind and not aggravate or dismiss the new contacts you have chosen to develop.
Remember, this is a two-way street. If someone reaches out to you first — or writes back after your follow-up — be prompt and genuine in your response. Nothing undoes the goodwill you've built faster than becoming what my new contact Christopher G. aptly calls a "professional ghoster."
Simple, consistent and patient.
Speaking of patient and deliberate — I want to show you what that looks like when you give it years, not weeks.
I volunteer with a local non-profit that maintains a beautiful antebellum house here in New Jersey, and our garden team has spent several years restoring one of the side gardens. We didn't start by planting everything we liked. First, we had to see what was already there. Then came the harder work: deciding what to remove, what to keep, and — only at the end — what few things to add. Sound familiar?
Like your contact list after a networking event, a garden rewards the person who's willing to do more weeding than planting. You can't nurture everything, so you choose. And what you choose, you tend to consistently, season after season, without expecting bloom on your timeline.
Right now, in late July, this garden is stunning — proof that simplicity, consistency, and patience compound into something far richer than a scattershot planting ever could. I'll save the full story for another issue, but here's a peek:
Lorette Pruden has helped hundreds of small business owners, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders grow their businesses and manage that growth since 2000. She specializes in the Formerly Corporate—so many small business owners who’ve worked with her come from a corporate background that she finally wrote the book on it.
