How To Follow-Up with a Mentor
Going for coffee with someone you’ve never met before is exciting; you have seemingly endless topics to talk about, ideas to share and advice to give and take… but then there’s the follow-up. Following-up with a mentor, or a potential mentor, can be difficult, especially if they’re a high-level professional who’s in high-demand for advice and mentorship.
These are our tips for building and maintaining a relationship after your coffee chat.
Follow-Up with an Email to Let Them Know What You Learned
Send a follow-up email within a few days of your chat to outline the two or three key lessons you took away from the conversation and thank them for their time. For example, what you learned about their industry that you didn’t know before, or what philosophy they shared that really stuck with you. Be sure to include links to any articles, books or YouTube videos that you brought up during your chat as well.
Sending a timely follow-up email lets them know that meeting with you was a valuable use of their time, making them much more likely to meet with you again.
Write a Blog Post About Your Experience
When meeting with someone who’s fairly high-profile and won’t necessarily have the chance to reply to every message that you send them, writing a blog post is a great way to stay on their radar while providing you with an opportunity to reflect on what you learned from the conversation and how you’re going to apply it to your life. The best way to show that you took your mentor’s advice to heart is to explain how you’ve incorporated their lessons into your personal and professional life. Let them know what progress you’ve made from the key lessons you learned from your chat.
Here’s an example of a great post written by a Ten Thousand Coffees member about his chat with Bruce Croxon, one of North America’s top investors.
10KTip: We love to hear about your coffee chats! Share your blog post with us and we’ll post it on our blog and social media channels.
Connect with Them on Twitter
Facebook is too personal, and most professionals usually reserve LinkedIn for other professionals that they’ve worked with, but Twitter is a great platform to connect with a mentor and stay up-to-date on what they and their company are working on. If they’re someone in the arts, Instagram can also be a good platform to stay connected, but avoid following them there if they’re photos are mostly personal or if their account is private.
10KTip: Make a Twitter list of everyone you’ve gone on a coffee chat with and make a point of engaging with them once or twice a month.
Continue to Demonstrate Value
Chances are that during your conversation you got a good understanding of the professional challenges and roadblocks that mentor is facing. This gives you the unique opportunity to think more about how you can help them solve these challenges and demonstrate the value that you bring to their company.
Add a time in your calendar every one or two months to share an insight into their business, such as feedback on their company’s website, or to offer to help out with a part of their business that you think could be improved, such as SEO or social media.
Following up with a mentor isn’t always easy, but making an effort to stay in touch is a great way to expand your network, learn more about different businesses, and maybe even land a job working alongside them! Send a coffee invite to someone who interests you today, you never know where it might take you!
How To Follow-Up with a Mentor
Going for coffee with someone you’ve never met before is exciting; you have seemingly endless topics to talk about, ideas to share and advice to give and take… but then there’s the follow-up. Following-up with a mentor, or a potential mentor, can be difficult, especially if they’re a high-level professional who’s in high-demand for advice and mentorship.
These are our tips for building and maintaining a relationship after your coffee chat.
Follow-Up with an Email to Let Them Know What You Learned
Send a follow-up email within a few days of your chat to outline the two or three key lessons you took away from the conversation and thank them for their time. For example, what you learned about their industry that you didn’t know before, or what philosophy they shared that really stuck with you. Be sure to include links to any articles, books or YouTube videos that you brought up during your chat as well.
Sending a timely follow-up email lets them know that meeting with you was a valuable use of their time, making them much more likely to meet with you again.
Write a Blog Post About Your Experience
When meeting with someone who’s fairly high-profile and won’t necessarily have the chance to reply to every message that you send them, writing a blog post is a great way to stay on their radar while providing you with an opportunity to reflect on what you learned from the conversation and how you’re going to apply it to your life. The best way to show that you took your mentor’s advice to heart is to explain how you’ve incorporated their lessons into your personal and professional life. Let them know what progress you’ve made from the key lessons you learned from your chat.
Here’s an example of a great post written by a Ten Thousand Coffees member about his chat with Bruce Croxon, one of North America’s top investors.
10KTip: We love to hear about your coffee chats! Share your blog post with us and we’ll post it on our blog and social media channels.
Connect with Them on Twitter
Facebook is too personal, and most professionals usually reserve LinkedIn for other professionals that they’ve worked with, but Twitter is a great platform to connect with a mentor and stay up-to-date on what they and their company are working on. If they’re someone in the arts, Instagram can also be a good platform to stay connected, but avoid following them there if they’re photos are mostly personal or if their account is private.
10KTip: Make a Twitter list of everyone you’ve gone on a coffee chat with and make a point of engaging with them once or twice a month.
Continue to Demonstrate Value
Chances are that during your conversation you got a good understanding of the professional challenges and roadblocks that mentor is facing. This gives you the unique opportunity to think more about how you can help them solve these challenges and demonstrate the value that you bring to their company.
Add a time in your calendar every one or two months to share an insight into their business, such as feedback on their company’s website, or to offer to help out with a part of their business that you think could be improved, such as SEO or social media.
Following up with a mentor isn’t always easy, but making an effort to stay in touch is a great way to expand your network, learn more about different businesses, and maybe even land a job working alongside them! Send a coffee invite to someone who interests you today, you never know where it might take you!
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