Networking follow-up usually dies the same way.
You meet ten great people at an event, get back to the office, and the stack of business cards ends up in the trash three weeks later.
That stack was ten possible referral partners.
It doesn’t have to end that way.
I have a process that keeps you in front of referral partners without taking more of your day.
Here it is:
Within 24 hours of meeting someone, add them to your CRM and let a workflow task your team with the follow-up: a LinkedIn connection, regular engagement with their posts, and a personal email. Newsletters and ads then keep you in front of them between those touchpoints, and that is how a handshake turns into a referral a year later.
Why do most networking contacts never turn into referrals?
Most networking contacts go cold because they stop seeing you after the first conversation.
You meet someone, have a great conversation, and swap cards. Then you’re back at the office with client calls waiting, the follow-up slips, and that person moves on to whoever keeps showing up in their feed.
That matters because buyers do most of their deciding when you’re not in the room. B2B buyers spend only 17% of their buying time in direct contact with vendors (Gartner, 2024, as cited in our Buyer’s Journey 2026 article). A handshake gets you into the conversation. Staying visible is what keeps you in it.
What does a follow-up system after a networking event look like?
Everything starts with one action: I add the person to my CRM, which is the software where I keep my contacts. That triggers a workflow that assigns tasks to my team and reminds me what to do, so the follow-up doesn’t depend on my memory or how busy my week is.
Here’s what the workflow does:
- Add them to your CRM. This is the one step I have to remember. The contact drops into a workflow, and the workflow assigns the rest.
- Task your assistant to connect on LinkedIn. The workflow tasks my sales assistant to find the person on LinkedIn and send the connection request.
- Add them to a Sales Navigator list. The workflow also tasks her with adding them to a list in Sales Navigator, LinkedIn’s paid tool for tracking people. She checks that list each day to see who posted.
- Engage with their posts. When someone on the list posts, she engages with the post. They see my name on their content, and I never had to ask them for anything.
- Get reminded to send a personal note. The automation reminds me to email them a short personal note a few days after we meet: nice to meet you, glad we talked about [the topic]. I don’t have to remember to do it.
- Send them an educational newsletter. Every contact in my CRM gets my weekly or monthly newsletter, so adding someone is what puts them on it. It has nothing to do with me. It’s useful marketing and content information they can use in their own business.
- Turn your CRM into an ad audience. I connect my CRM to Meta, LinkedIn, and display advertising as a custom audience, which is a contact list the ad platform matches to its own users. My posts and ads are then shown to everyone on that list, so people in my CRM keep seeing my content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and across the web.
Here’s what that looks like from their side. They see my LinkedIn posts. They see me engage with theirs. They get useful emails. They see me on Facebook and Instagram, and my ads follow them around the internet. I’m everywhere, and the only thing I had to remember was adding them to my CRM.
The setup took real time to build, and it works because my assistant and I are tasked with the work. The system doesn’t do the engaging for you. It makes sure the right person does the right thing on time.
If you’re starting from zero, start by drawing out the process. What do you want the follow-up to look like after you meet someone? Then choose a CRM that allows for workflows, and build the workflow around that process.
Who should own networking follow-up at your firm?
One named person should own it, and it shouldn’t be you. If no one owns networking follow-up, it doesn’t happen. You get back to the office, client calls are waiting, and the cards sit on the desk until someone throws them out.
In my case, I built the process and the automation, and my sales assistant runs the daily LinkedIn work. That split is why it keeps running when I’m busy.
Before your next event, answer three questions:
- Who sends the LinkedIn connection request? Name the person.
- Where does every new contact go? Pick one place, ideally your CRM.
- By when? Give it a deadline. I use 24 hours.
What happens when in-person networking meets online follow-up?
The contacts who turn into referrals are usually the ones who kept seeing you after the event. The proof is in the stories, mine and my clients’.
My coffee that turned into five referrals. I added a man to my network who had started his own consulting company. He sells sales and marketing services, but not social media or content. I kept engaging with him on LinkedIn. A year later he invited me for coffee, and since then he has referred me at least five clients.
Heather Greenhill Stohlman, family law attorney in North Palm Beach. Heather was already a strong networker, always at bar events and community functions. She was posting videos, but she had no LinkedIn presence and no clear strategy behind her content. We built her a LinkedIn presence and a weekly content calendar so her network saw her online between events. Prospects now arrive at consultations already familiar with her. In her words: “I know who you are already because of my online presence,” and “I can honestly say that right now I have the highest case load of my entire career.” Read the full case study.
Brett Steinberg, Steinberg Law. Brett is a personal injury attorney in South Florida who also handles cruise ship and maritime cases. After years of repetitive social media content from other agencies, we shifted him to personality-driven content with humor and trending topics, built around his maritime niche. Other law firms started referring him cases, and his maritime cases rose 300-400%. Read the full case study.
Stephen Hainline, Aerogear. Stephen is the person who got marketing off the ground at Aerogear, an aerospace and defense manufacturer. After nearly two years of consistent weekly email and social media visibility, that presence carried into the trade shows: “everybody knows us because we make a presence.” He also told us, “There’s been several multi-million dollar jobs that we got because they keep seeing our emails.” Read the full case study.
Scott Kwit, Compass Industrial Sales. Scott built his business on 26 years of manufacturing relationships and phone calls. After we built his LinkedIn content strategy, he told us, “I probably get an additional three to four, if not five calls a week just due to the visibility on LinkedIn…” Those calls convert to RFQs and purchase orders. Read the full case study.
Frequently Asked Questions
How soon after meeting someone should I follow up?
Within 24 hours. Add the person to your CRM right away and send the LinkedIn connection request while the conversation is still fresh. Follow with a short personal email a few days later, then keep them in your regular communication after that.
Should I add a note to a LinkedIn connection request?
If you met in person, yes. One line naming where you met reminds them who you are. A 2025 ReactIn analysis of 80,000+ requests found blank requests accepted more often (55-68%) than personalized ones (45-60%), but that data is mostly cold outreach to strangers, not people you’ve shaken hands with.
Do I need Sales Navigator to do this?
No. You can connect and comment on posts from your regular LinkedIn feed. Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s paid tool, and it saves time because you can build a list of the people you’ve met and see which of them posted recently, instead of scrolling your whole feed.
What should my personal email say?
Keep it short and skip the pitch. Say it was nice to meet them, mention one specific thing you talked about, and stop there. The goal is a real human message, so they remember you as a person.
Should my newsletter promote my services?
No. The newsletter I send to new contacts has nothing to do with me. It’s marketing and content information they can use in their own business. The value is the point, and the trust you build over time does the selling.
How much time does this take?
Building the workflow takes real effort up front. If you do the steps by hand instead, plan on about five minutes per person within the first 24 hours. Once the workflow is running, it assigns the tasks and reminds you, so nothing depends on memory.
Want help building your own follow-up system?
Every person you meet is a possible referral partner or client, and a system is what keeps you in front of them after the handshake. Here’s where to start:
- If you’re an attorney: join me for The Referral Radar™ workshop, where we work on the LinkedIn profile, content, and engagement pieces of this system together.
- If you’re not an attorney: take the Marketing Gap assessment to see where your marketing has gaps.