“Following Up is an Art” – Hillel Fuld

It has been several years since my first Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona Spain. I didn’t know what I was heading into. The sheer size, the massive amount of people, running around all day from meeting to meeting, booth to booth, event to event. I came back home and was sick for a week. Then I did it again the next year. Same result: yuuuge event. Tremendous success.

The first time I was sent by my employer. I went alone, I set up all the travel arrangements myself. I could have done better. The second time I went, I wasn’t alone, but this time I went as a co-founder. I did all the travel and admin arrangements beyond the business development work of setting up meetings.

Never enough TIME

Both times I felt one thing clearly. I didn’t have enough time. There was this deep feeling of missing out. Someone told me it’s called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). While I kept walking by booths I didn’t have time to visit. I missed a few pre-scheduled meetings because of miscommunications and bad Wi-Fi. I was briefly introduced to people of interest I wasn’t fortunate enough to delve into meaningful conversation. Oh, and hearing about invite-only after hour cocktails, dinners, and parties (some of which turned out to be the best networking experiences of my professional career). Your first MWC is like going to your first music concert. It’s massive, it’s noisy, messy, and you don’t want it to end.

People First

From a business perspective, it was a great success. A direct ROI (Return-on-investment) was measured, and the performance of MWC related accounts (current) had a nearly 2X increase over none MWC accounts following the event on a 12-month horizon. Many new accounts were established. But the intangibles are where the magic really happened. Nothing can replace the visceral experience of meeting face to face. The eye to eye contact, the handshake, the choice of words an intonation, the flow of the conversation. This is especially pronounced when discussing none business-related topics.

Just Follow-Up

Any salesperson will tell you. It’s a business of people, not of numbers. When you build a relationship of trust and open communication, you will know if there is business to be done. The veterans know to recognize this faster and more accurately than others. And this is why we built Folocard.

It was at MWC that I had to deal with business cards like currency for the first time. The scale, the speed. Clearly, a modern, mobile-first, tool was needed. However, we found that simply using contact management apps were not really the solution as they siloed themselves from the real purpose of the business card – an implicit request to follow up. Hence the birth of Folocard. The first Follow Up focused business card scanner app.

It was Hillel Fuld who recently quoted himself saying: “Following up is an Art“.

What do to BEFORE MWC?

How can you use Folocard for MWC? Well here are some ideas:

• Download the app and register
• Explore the app.
• Test it out on your business card. Some business card designs are not OCR friendly (small fonts, big spaces, no clear contrasting colors)
• Write a general Folo for MWC:
  • Hi, It was a pleasure to meet you at MWC. Please keep in touch. Best, (your name).
  • Hi, It was a pleasure to meet you at MWC. I’ve attached my details to this email, let’s keep in touch. Best, (your name).
  • Hi, It was a pleasure to meet you at MWC. We just launched Folocard, a Business Card Follow up App for Android, it’s available on Google Play. Would love to have you try it out and tell us what you think about it. In fact, this message was sent with the help of Folocard (isn’t dogfooding awesome?). I’ve also attached my details. Best, (your name).
• Write a Folo for specific events you plan to attend and network at:
  • Hi, Pleasure meeting you today at the Mobile Advertising Forum. The discussion about Native Ad Units and the issues of viewability measurement by the MRC is certainly something our company has dealt with internally and with our clients. I’ve attached my contact (vCard) for you to have my full details. Hope to catch up soon. Best, (your name).
• Write a Folo invitation for meeting up after hours:
  • Hi, Great meeting you today! I’ll be heading to the Twitter Cocktail party at the Boadas Cocteleria (Carrer dels Tallers, 1, 08001 Barcelona,). It’s on the Rambla near the Plaça de Catalunya. Hope to see you there. Attached are my details. Cheers! (your name).
• Write a Folo for after a full day
• Write a Folo for VIPs
• Write a Folo for job seekers:
  • Hi, Nice meeting you today. Please share your CV with me so I can forward to HR. If you want more information you can find it on folocard.com/careers. Take care, (your name).
• Write a Folo for when your back in the office.

Do you have other follow up ideas? Any insights on how to prepare for MWC? Please share them in the comments.

Happy MWC networking!