Zvi Band built a successful software consultancy directly from building and maintaining relationships with people. By networking and maintaining relationships, he was able to build software for agencies, startups, venture capital firms, and even fortune 500 companies like Ford.

Zvi Band is also the cofounder of Contactually, an amazing piece of software that makes it easy to track and maintain the relationships in your network. Zvi shares how to connect with people, and how to maintain and manage relationships in a way that leads to clients.

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Zvi shares with us:

Zvi was a freelance software developer. He coded the high-end software development projects, such as intricate web or iphone applications, for creative agencies and fortune 500 companies, like Ford, CPS, Volkswagen, and the New York Stock Exchange.

He didn't start off with the big names, but started making a website for his friend's dad's construction company's website. So how did he get the big names? It's not enough to be good at development.

“They hired me because I had the right reputation and I had strong references who were driving business to me.”

For example, he got Ford because he knew the right person at an agency who recommended him. The relationships were key. But, Zvi is an introvert.

“Networking to me was this kind of shady thing that business people do.”

But when he was going to small meet ups and conferences, he started making friends. These friends started driving business to him.

How can you start getting connections?

Zvi started going to networking events for things that had nothing to really do with him, like events for PR people or people interested in government contracting. He was often the only developer in the room. He met a wide variety of people, but never went to these events with an objective. He just went. And he made friends.

Professional relationships vs Friends

To Zvi, these are one and the same. Most people think that there has to be a structure to the professional relationships, but that just leads to not staying in touch. But with friends, you say hi at events, ask them what they are up to, follow them on Facebook and Twitter. Coming to networking events to make friends has unlocked so many doors for Zvi.

Before the conference, identify who is going to be there and who you want to meet with. At registration, you get a list of attendees so take the time to figure out who you would want to talk to. Send a quick tweet, “Hey, it would be great to meet in person.”

At the conference, have short conversations with a bunch of different people and exchange some sort of personal object so you have some rapport to follow up on. Personal objects come from small talk. So ask what they did this past weekend, what they are planning on doing in the summer, what their hobbies are, etc.

Right after the conference, sit down for 2-3 hours and write down every conversation you had, every point that you want to follow up, and make a follow-up plan.

Capture as many raw notes as possible. After or even during the meet-ups. When Zvi meets with someone for coffee, he says, “I want to make sure this is as valuable as possible for us. So do you mind if I take some notes on my ipad here just so I don't loose track of what we talk about.” Most people appreciate this and realize that it isn't a waste of time for them to meet with you.

After the conference: Follow-Up

The biggest failure that people make is not followin-up. Having the perfect first impression is useless if you don't follow up and they don't know who you are 6-months later.

So, how do you follow up?

Overall, take a step back and realize that relationship marketing is about them remembering you. It's a long-term game.

What are your goals from relationships? Are you trying to get new customers, new users for the product, more referrals, or grow the account value of new customers?

Let's say you want to double the size of your consulting business through referrals. You can estimate that you need about 30 referrals to double the size of the business. Who are the people that would give you referrals? Past clients, well connected people, other freelancers or consultants that can pass business on to you, or other vendors that can pass business to you.

Once you know your goals, you can decide if the person you just met is really worth the effort to stay in touch with. Ask yourself if the person you meet fits into one category of people that can help you meet your goals. Yea, it's harsh, but it's time management and trying to intentionally build specific relationships.

Then, you need to decide what is the cadence of relationship that you want to maintain with that person. Given that we all tend to forget things over time, how often do you need to stay in touch?

Zvi's general recommendation is to keep in-touch once every quarter or every 6 months. Then, scale it up as the person becomes more important to you.

Whenever you are following up with them, think about delivering value, not just saying hello.

“As we meet more and more interesting people, or more and more valuable people, we can level up from there.”

So the basic follow-up is saying that it was really nice to meet them, great conversation, really appreciate the time. It's not much, but it's better than a non-contextual hello.

The next level up is to expand upon the personal objects that you learned about them, the hobbies, their family, what teams they follow, etc. It shows that you care about them and you want to build a relationship with them.

For example, Zvi met a guy who happened to be a Cubs fan. So he might buy him some Cubs gear for $10-$15 and send it to him as a follow up.

Help your contacts help you. Don't be afraid to make the ask, but make it right.

Wrong: “Hey, I'm looking for potential clients. Do you know any?”

Better: “I have a lot of services to offer in the lead gen space. Do you know any companies that are always searching for more leads?”

Now, when they refer you, they are actually offering a service to their contacts. It's value.

You can even put in your email signature something about who you serve so they know who would be good contacts to refer to you. For example, “The best thing that you can do is to provide me with a referral to one of your trusted colleagues who is looking for real estate.”

“The most important thing is to build that relationship, stay in-touch over time, so when an opportunity arises, you're the person they think of.”

Systems for managing your relationships

Relationship management should be something that you actively manage day to day. Not a general resolution like, I hope I lose weight this year.

1. Capture as much information as possible. Basic contact information as well as prioritization system (e.g. past client, potential prospect), what is the next step (e.g. follow up in 6 months), and as much relationship intelligence as possible, such as what are the emails you are exchanging, when was the last time you met in person, what did you last talk about, what are interesting facts about them. In Excel spreadsheet, Contactually, or even notecards on your desk, your database should be used to capture additional information about who they are and tags for people's interests, such as tagging a developer with php, ruby on rails, or python. Capture as much as possible. That way you can search for specific things when you are trying to connect people.
2. Prioritize and make sure you are following up with the right people. If they said that they might have a new opportunity in 2 months, then it is obvious to followup in 2 months. If it is an interesting relationship, then you stay in touch based on the category of the relationship or the importance of the relationship. For example, staying in touch with all past clients can be automated to every 4 months and prospective clients to every month.
3. Always engage and always deliver value.

Best tool you can have: Block off an hour every week to manage your relationships.

You don't have to invest in a big crm, like Contactually, right away. Start out with an excel spreadsheet and keep it updated daily, weekly, monthly, what ever works for you. When you start finding the spreadsheet is getting painful to manage and unruly, it might be time to switch to something more automated. If the crm can drive one client to you a year, then it pays for itself.

Resources Mentioned:

• Try Contactually free for 14 days then email Zvi for some personal tips

Find Zvi Online:

• Email: Zvi@contactually.com
  
• ZviBand.com
  
• On Facebook
  
• On Twitter @skeevis