We make connections every day, and since many people aren’t great with names or are so busy that new faces can blur together, it’s important that you stand out from all the other people that your talent is meeting on a day to day basis.

Once you’ve given your new talent your elevator pitch and you’re getting signals that they could potentially be interested in working with you (or at least learning more about your company), it’s time to focus on nurturing that relationship. Here are some ways you can nurture your new talent:

Keep in touch

it’s a good idea to set up the expectation that you’ll be in touch on the day that you meet your lead. A simple “Let’s keep in contact”, “I’ll be in touch”, or “Let’s do coffee” sets up the expectation that you’ll be in contact in the future.

Nurturing your relationship with your new talent is a delicate balance between not disappearing off of their radar completely, and not being too pushy.

One way to think about it is to consider how you would act if you were trying to make a new friend or enter into a romantic relationship with someone. It’s unlikely that you’d aim to spend every moment of time with that person, but you wouldn’t get their details and then never call them either.

Once you know someone’s interests and goals, it’s easy to keep them in mind and email them a link to an article that they may be interested in or wish them a Merry Christmas. This keeps them thinking about you so that your company is the first they will think of when they want to leave their current position.

Be interested

Often we’re so focused on being interesting that we forget to be interested in the people we’re talking to. When you’re emailing, calling, or grabbing a coffee with your talent, it’s important that you’re asking them questions about themselves and their life as well as telling them about you and your company.

Knowing that they’ve been married for ten years and have three kids is just as important as knowing what skills they have and the types of roles they’re good for.
This information gives you an indication of what they may be looking for in their next job (potentially work-life balance) and also gives them a chance to talk about themselves and their family (something most people love to do).

Centralise your data

If you’re focusing on building relationships and long-term scalability, you’re going to have a number of different people that you’re engaging with at any one time. They may be from different cities or countries, and they’ll all have different roles, skills and interests.

Keeping all of this information organised and accessible to your whole team is crucial.

A Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM) is excellent for this, and a great example is the CRM solution by Salesforce, which is used by more than 100,000 innovative companies around the world. These tools allow you to access information such as the talent’s history, their preferences, social media presence, all past interactions that your team has had with the talent etc.

Have a Communication Strategy

It’s important to have a communication strategy in place so that your whole team understands your nurturing process. Maybe this means one followup email letting your talent know that it was nice to meet them, followed by communication once a month or once every few weeks depending on your goals.

Regardless of how you outline your strategy, your whole team should be on board and following the strategy with every lead.

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