How to build relationships through Social Networking

I originally met Paul Clegg online through ecademy.com. Paul lives in the U.K. while I live in San Diego, CA. When I first connected with him we exchanged a couple messages but nothing much came of our initial connection.

A few weeks ago my company had a Sponsor’s booth at the BNI International conference in Long Beach CA. While manning the booth, this gentleman approaches my booth and says – “Hi Rick, I’m Paul Clegg and we originally met on ecademy.” I really had no idea that he was involved with BNI so meeting him there was a big surprise. Though it was the first time I “really” met him, it felt like I was reconnecting with an old friend.

For the next several days, Paul and I had some great interactions. He proceeded to send many people to our booth and was instrumental in us completing several sales offering his testimonial about how much he enjoyed receiving QuoteActions. When we parted company, he had become a QuoteActions sender and we had agreed to stay in touch and look for opportunities to collaborate.

Today I received this personalized Send Out Card from Paul. Inside of the card he congratulated me for making the playoffs with my baseball team – something I had twitted about last week. Remember that Paul is from the U.K. where they don’t follow baseball!

The reason I’m sharing this with you, is because Paul embodies what Social Networking is all about – starting, building & continuing relationships. He is a master networker that combines online and offline networking methods in an exceptional manner. He understands what it takes to build and continue relationships. The fact he was paying attention to what I was sharing from my personal life and took the time to acknowledge it by sending me a card is so remarkable that here I am sharing about it and telling the whole world about it.

Please visit his blog and connect with him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/paulclegg