I know that dripping and pinging sound like something I should visit the doctor about but they are actually techniques that I use to stay in touch with people in my network.
Dripping
Dripping is the term I use to describe how I drip information on potential business partners. Sometimes things don’t align (life happens, etc.) and a person who is very interested in your product or business doesn’t get involved right away. These are the people I drip on. I send them a weekly email with information about an upcoming meeting or conference call and then I always add some type of value to the email such as a link to an article on small business. Lastly, I invite them to re-engage with me. I offer my phone number and tell them to give me a call if they have any questions.
Pinging
I stole the pinging concept from Keith Ferrazzi. Here is an explanation about pinging from Inc.:
Eighty percent of success, Woody Allen once said, is just showing up. Eighty percent of networking is just staying in touch. (Keith) Ferrazzi calls it "pinging." It’s a quick, casual greeting. He makes hundreds of phone calls a day. Most of them are simply quick hellos that he leaves on friends’ voice mail. He sends E-mail constantly. He remembers birthdays and makes a special point of reaching people when they have one. When it comes to relationship maintenance, he is, in the words of more than one friend, "the most relentless, energetic person I know."
