The 48 Hours After

following up · tactic

Block half a day within 48 hours of getting home from a conference, list everyone you met with notes and next steps, and send the follow-ups.

The idea

I love conferences (weird for an introvert, I know), and I've gone to 15+ in a year. Most people blow the real opportunity. Great conversations, lots of energy, then nothing, and the cards go through the wash. The value of a conference is what you do in the 48 hours after. The event mixes the ingredients. The follow-up puts them in the oven. Without it, you just have expensive cookie dough.

How to do it

During the event, just scribble. Don't try to update your CRM or write perfect emails. Capture two things per person: personal details that make them human, and next steps.

Block half a day within 48 hours of getting home. Not kidding. Half a day.

Make a four-column spreadsheet: name, contact info, notes, next steps. Fill it in for everyone, even people with "no immediate value."

Send a "great meeting you" note to each: hope the trip home was easy, make sure you both have each other's info, mention any follow-ups (and soften theirs with "whenever is convenient").

Do the next steps now. Send the article, make the intro, book the call.

Example

Scribbles as simple as "Bob - CTO challenges, send article on team culture" are enough. My old mistake was coming home and catching up on everything I'd missed instead of on the people I'd just met. Don't repeat it.

Script

"Hey Bob, great chatting about your CTO challenges at the conference. Here's that article on engineering team culture we discussed. Let's grab virtual coffee in the next few weeks."

Watch out for

If you can't remember whose golden retriever Kevin is, it's already too late. Take better notes next time.

Sources

Relatable: The spreadsheet imports straight into Relatable later, where everyone can go into a conference sphere with a cadence for follow-up. How-to: After a conference: turn a stack of cards into relationships, Import contacts from a spreadsheet.

Related frameworks

Conference Before, During, After: Before: goal, target list, booked meetings, host a dinner. During: scribble notes. After: half a day within 48 hours to follow through.

Capture, Summarize, Act: Capture next steps and personal details, condense them soon after, delete the rest, then act on the next steps and file the keepers.

Follow-Through Puts You in the Top Quartile: Simply doing what you said you'd do puts you ahead of most people; follow-through is the cheapest way to stand out.

The Budding-Relationship Playbook: After a great first meeting: take notes, prioritize them, thank them, deliver what you promised, thank them again later, and set a reminder.