🔑 Always send follow-up emails after meetings.
After you have a meeting with someone (in-person or online), you should send a follow-up email within 24hrs. The purpose of this follow-up email is to show that you appreciate the person's time, recap the takeaways from the meeting, and include any action items that you or the other person should do.
Example of action items you might want to ask for:
- Asking to add them to your personal newsletter.
- Asking them for an introduction to another smart person in their network.
- Asking for another meeting in 4 weeks to catch up and give updates.
- Asking for feedback on how you handled the meeting so you can improve.
Also, make sure to add them on LinkedIn/Twitter.
Here's an example of a follow-up email:
Hi _______!
I really enjoyed our conversation yesterday! [then, add something personal to your conversation here like: “The work you’re doing with reinforcement learning to train autonomous vehicles is incredible and so inspiring.”]
Would you be open to giving me feedback on my next article on machine learning? Since you work in the industry, I'd really appreciate your guidance. I should be done the article next week.
Ps. I have a monthly newsletter where I update people on my progress, can I add you to it?
(or you can link your personal website or something interesting)
- [Your first name]
Ps:
- Don't follow the template world for word.
- Only ask to meet people you actually want to meet.
- Go to the meeting prepared with good questions, but don't make it feel like an interview.