Close The Loop Damnit

One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it’s making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it’s the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you’re dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you.
- Reid Hoffman

The startup eco-system is small and relationships are long-term rather than transactional. Yet almost every new founder I meet makes the same mistake, treating the first step in a relationship, the introduction, casually. The most frequent misstep is not looping back to the introducer and letting them know how things went. It’s respectful and critical for making the most of your relationships. The introducer often will backchannel on your behalf; if things went well they’ll enjoy introducing you to others. It turns introducers from basic gateways into powerful advocates and allies.

In the new age of accelerators and armies of mentors, it is easy to view introductions as cheap and ubiquitous. People get overwhelmed and the loop back slips. But we’re talking about more than a thank you email. We’re talking about something that slips when you aren’t critically thinking about how to engage.

Last week I had two different encounters that illustrate this point. In introduction #1, I introduced Live Oak to a large potential customer. Before the meeting they called me and asked how they should approach the pitch. What was the company most interested in? What should they expect? Right after the meeting they shot me a message that it went well and wanted to know how I suggested moving forward. I texted my contact informally and got his feedback (he loved it) and what he needed to move forward. Now the company is able to move forward knowing exactly how to close the deal. That’s full court press, and in sales it wins games.

Let’s contrast this with introduction #2. A company asked me for a suggestion on a VC that could help in their current round. I suggested one and told them their investment criteria. After the introduction the VC was excited. In their haste the company pitched a valuation outside of the investment criteria, teeing up an A, instead of talking about the money left in their seed round. It sounded like radio silence on my end until the VC called to tell me they liked the company but the valuation was way out of their zone. “Our valuation limit is right on our website...” The shame is that the company does want more money in their seed. If they had called afterwards I could have found out what the miscommunication was informally. Instead we both look silly. Missed opportunities.

You should be closing the loop on every introduction. It maximizes your potential of having a successful encounter and it’s respectful. As entrepreneurs, we trade connections and build value through long-term relationships. You absolutely cannot build valuable relationships if you treat each introduction transactionally.