Last Tuesday evening, I attended a networking event for Boston Women Connect at the Aloft Hotel in Lexington.

I don’t go to many in-person networking events, but-thanks to all the snow in Boston this winter-I haven’t been out much. I thought this event might jumpstart the process of meeting some new people in the first quarter.

The event was terrific: there was organized networking and lots of interesting conversations. Many women recognized me as a new face, and they made an effort to come say hello. The organization’s director even walked right over and told me how much she loved my website! (I was very impressed that she had taken the time to find out whom the first-timers would be.)

I came home that night with conversations buzzing in my head and a fistful of business cards. We’ve all been there: excited about new connections, filled with ideas about how to keep in touch, and intrigued about what our next steps might be with each person we met.

And we all know what usually happens next!

We put the stacks of business cards on our desks and get back to yesterday’s work that we left unfinished. From time to time, we’ll glance at those cards and wonder, “When am I going to do something? I should really follow up!”

But before you know it, too much time has gone by, we can’t even remember who all these people were, or why we liked them. Our good ideas about how we might have worked with them have faded and we know that, if we get in touch now, they might not even remember us! So, we sigh and think, “I’ll be better next time,” and push the cards into a drawer.

Then, naturally, we feel a little dread about the waste. You might wind up saying, “I wasted money on the registration fee. I wasted time getting dressed, driving there and spending time away from my family.”

If we don’t take care of these new relationships from the very beginning, the likelihood of these developing into anything positive for our business is small.

So here’s what I recommend instead, when returning from a networking event or when meeting someone new:

1. 1. Look at each business card and try to recall the person’s face or something about them.
   2. Send a brief “hello e-mail.” I write one e-mail message and tailor it for each person, reflecting what we talked about. I also ask for permission to add them to my newsletter distribution list (if I didn’t do that when we met).
   3. Send a LinkedIn connection request.
   4. If I think he or she is someone that I’d like to stay in touch with individually, I add him or her to my contact management system, Contactually.
   5. Send an e-mail to the event organizers, thanking them for their efforts and letting them know what I enjoyed about the meeting.
   6. If the people whom I e-mailed respond, I respond within 24 hours. If they want to meet with me, I include a link to my calendar scheduling system, Acuity.

And voila! From now on, everyone I met who accepted my invitation on LinkedIn will see me in his or her news feed once a week, when I either post an article or publish my newsletter.

The newsletter itself will arrive in the e-mail inboxes of those who gave me permission to send it. And, for those whom I decided that I wanted to keep in closer contact, a reminder will pop up in my contact manager several times per year.

It takes a few minutes to set this up but, now that I have a system in place, I’m able to keep in touch with the interesting people whom I met along the way and grow my business at the same time!

It happened to me just last week. I was speaking to a new client on the phone when I suddenly realized that I had neglected to send her a new client welcome gift. When we hung up, I scrambled and got it in the mail. Then, the very next day, a different new client sent me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Whoa, hadn’t I already invited him?

Well, that’s a problem: in one week, I forgot to do something that I used to do automatically…twice.

It happens to all of us; things are going along smoothly, and then you realize that you’ve forgotten to do something that you had never missed before. At that moment you have two choices: keep fixing things on the fly (after the fact), or invest a little bit of time creating a process. (I hope you can guess which path I recommend!)

Once I realized my predicament, I hit the pause button, popped open an Excel spreadsheet and made a simple list.

When I start working with new clients, I need to:

1. Send them welcome gifts
2. Add them to Contactually (my contact management software)
3. Send LinkedIn invitations
4. Add them to my newsletter distribution list
5. Get their physical address
6. Add them to my distribution list at SendOutCards.com
7. Add them to my client rate sheet
8. If applicable, send new client referral gifts

Interestingly, as I went through my newly documented process, I realized that some steps were missing. I saw that I needed to create projects in my time tracking software (Toggl) as well as create folders for my notes and documents in Dropbox.

Additionally, it occurred to me that new clients tended to ask the same questions each time we get started. I created a welcome e-mail that answered these common questions.

As my new client set-up process expands, here’s what I’m noticing:

1. I’ve got enough in my head already! As the process moves from my head to paper, I no longer have to remember it.
2. As I implement the process, I have a chance to keep fine-tuning it.
3. It’s now documented and field-tested, which enables me to confidently hand it off to a member of my team.

Remember, small distractions-like a pebble in your shoe-can prevent you from focusing on the things that really matter. Take the time to document your routine business processes, and watch as the larger things go more smoothly.