Dictate a 30-second outline after each meeting, have an assistant draft the follow-up, and spend a few minutes at day's end reviewing and sending.
The idea
Patrick Ewers, an executive and relationship marketing coach, calls this role an Engagement Manager: a spin on the traditional virtual assistant, built to give the people in your network a better experience of you, at scale. Almost everyone agrees you should send a follow-up after every meeting, and almost everyone admits they do it half the time at best, because a good one takes 10-15 minutes to write. With an EM, your part shrinks to about a minute. Patrick has seen this one habit save people up to an hour a day.
How to do it
As you walk out of a meeting, record a 30-second voice memo with the gist of what the follow-up should say.
Your assistant polishes it into a proper email and leaves it as a draft.
Before you log off, give the pile of drafts 2-3 minutes: tweak, approve, send.
Hand over other back-office relationship work too: turning raw notes into stored notes and next steps, triaging incoming mail, drafting larger sends from your bullet points, and nudging you to stay consistent.
New assistant? In my coaching we suggested three starter projects: organizing your email, buying gifts for your A-list, and following up with old leads.
Example
For much of my career an executive assistant drafted some of my email (and researched where to find decent matcha when I traveled). Every so often someone replied, "Did Zvi actually write this?" I'd jump in personally, sometimes by text, to confirm it was me.
Watch out for
You stay the face of the relationship. If your assistant has kept up with someone for years and you can't remember a thing "you" discussed when you bump into them, it's gone too far.
Effective Hourly Rate: Divide your income by your hours worked, then delegate or template anything below that rate so your time goes to people.
The Post-Meeting Protocol: Right after a meeting, send a follow-up listing what you committed to, then block weekly time to process notes and act on tasks.
What Never to Outsource to AI: Let AI draft, summarize and suggest who to contact, but never let it handle your inner circle, emotional messages, introductions, or who deserves your attention.
Templatize Your Actions: Template the repetitive parts of your outreach and personalize at send time, so "what do I say?" becomes "which one do I send?"