Tweet

When “Keeping in Touch” Hurts vs. Helps You

Written by: Timothy Ferriss

Article Overview: Contacting would-be VIP mentors is something most people have trouble with. The question isn’t just “how do I contact them?” but also “how should I communicate with them once I do?” I teach students how to reach the unreachables in my guest lectures at Princeton, and here is my response to a recent e-mail about the latter.

When “Keeping in Touch” Hurts vs. Helps You

Contacting would-be VIP mentors is something most people have trouble with. The question isn’t just “how do I contact them?” but also “how should I communicate with them once I do?” I teach students how to reach the unreachables in my guest lectures at Princeton, and here is my response to a recent e-mail about the latter.

Dear Mr. Ferriss,

Hi. I took the first step towards gaining a mentor by calling [important Chairman], and he said I can call him whenever I had any more questions. I was wondering how frequently you contact your mentors. I don’t want to contact him so frequently that it consumes his time, but I don’t want him to forget about me either.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Sincerely,

[A blog reader]

My response:

Have one truly meaningful conversation with him and ask good questions. Do the same about 3 months later and you’ll never have to “keep in touch” by bothering him. He’ll remember you. I never “keep in touch” by calling or emailing when I have nothing important to say or ask. Have fewer deep connections and you don’t need to. Be memorable and you don’t need to be frequent. The latter just annoys important/busy people.

Hope that helps!

Tim

Related Articles
  10 Things That Hurt Your Search Engine Rankings
  How to Keep Your Clients
  Effective use of CRM software
  The Need for Touch
  The Golden Rule of Networking: Stay in Touch With Your Clients

Article Tags: e mail, guest lectures, meaningful conversation, mentor, mentors, princeton, thanks in advance



Related Forum Posts
Re: How to Stay Motivated - Thanks for posting this, Matthew. Keeping the motivation strong is something I've really been struggling with. Donna, I think I was just not pushing as hard as I need to and getting maintenance instead of progress.
Re: Tactics for Blog Traffic - Keeping up with your blog with a new post at least once a week should be atop every blogger's to-do list. The Google "Freshness" approach rewards new, original content.
Re: Need suggestions on domain name registration. - Keeping a hyphen in domain is not bad and it does not affect on seo.You will get lots of sites with hyphen in domain that are ranking higher in google.The main factor is you must have the unique contents.
Re: What to do at the first roadblock? - GT said, I think seeing that the glass (i.e. market or opportunity) is only half full is a good mindset to have rather than looking at the sheer number of competitors. I would have to agree. I think this is a great thing to think about in almost any situation, whether home or business. As I mentioned, attitude is 95% of the battle. Keeping it positive is the only way to get the things you really want in life. Helping others helps, too. See the quote in my signature.
Business or busy-ness !! - Ideally your business is should be able to let go of you after breakeven and a reasonable period of time. Keeping you in chains would qualify it to be busy-ness rather than business. Once set the business systems set should be able to run on auto pilot with you co-ordinating activity rather than you running the activity. If you are at ease with this thought - you could go ahead and think of the second in line. Not too difficult though takes some tact and some practice before you could take the plunge....


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

SEO and the Entrepreneur

Sales Flubs

Google Panda and Your Search Engine Rankings

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.