Follow Up After Your Talk

Your presentation is done, and the adrenaline has stopped pumping. Now what?

Once you’ve won people over to your point of view, help them implement your ideas. Encourage them. Bring them new insights. Remove roadblocks. Keep your message alive by:

• Sending personal notes: It’s rare to get a nice handwritten note these days, and people appreciate it when they do. Send a note whenever you feel grateful—to a colleague who helped you set up your presentation, for example, or to a busy executive who made time to attend and voice her support. (I’ve sent a few “I’m sorry” notes, too—it works both ways.) It can be a formal branded thank-you note or a clever card that touches on a personal conversation you had with an audience member. In a world of digital communications, a human touch stands out.
• E-mailing the audience: Follow up with an e-mail thanking people for their time. If appropriate, summarize your big idea, key points, call to action, and “new bliss.” Many times, event organizers will share their attendees’ e-mail addresses with you in lieu of paying speaking fees.
• Being accessible: If you presented within your organization, being accessible can mean hosting a lunch immediately after your talk, for instance, or blocking off your calendar so you can have an open door to answer questions in more detail. If you spoke to a broader audience and don’t have people’s contact information, send out thank-yous and other follow-up messages through blog and social media posts. Respond to anyone who starts a thoughtful conversation with you.
• Sending materials: If you promised the audience any materials in your talk, get them out right away. You might want to offer thank-you gifts such as free books or access to secure content, but check with the audience first. Many people have contracts with their employers that don’t allow them to accept gifts from vendors or industry influencers.
• Calling or meeting with individuals: Suppose you presented a new initiative that’s going to be demanding on your team. Spend time listening to each member’s concerns. Pick up the phone if it’s not possible to talk to everyone in person. Insights from these conversations can help shape your next piece of communication with the group. If you discover, for instance, that people are most worried about limited resources, describe your plans for shoring them up.
• Booking “next steps” meetings: Gather folks afterward to answer questions that require some research or analysis, and work together on a road-map for achieving your goals. Facilitate collaboration in any way you can—for instance, order in lunch and ask your project leaders to brainstorm ways of marketing your initiative internally.
• Presenting again: Though your presentation is done, you may need to do a few more like it to share your message with other groups and move your ideas along. If you’re selling a product or service, the purpose of the first presentation is usually to get a second presentation—that is, face-to-face time with a decision maker.

Think of each interaction as one moment in a larger relationship with your audience. That’s the mind-set it takes to persuade people to change their thinking and behavior—and their world of work.