I've been talking quite a bit in my Sunday emails recently about the importance of nurturing relationships with your contacts.

But there's something you MUST do first before following up with important contacts.

It's get permission.

It's something we don’t often think of for personal follow-up.

Obviously, we get permission for email marketing and other types of “mass” follow up because people sign up for it themselves.

But typically if we meet someone face to face and they seem like a great potential client, we tend to just go ahead and do it.

The same goes for connections on LinkedIn.

It's pretty standard advice these days to connect with your target clients and then follow up with messages that add value (like a link to an article), ask questions to see if they have a problem you can help with, and then maybe get on a call with them.

It all sounds great until you think about it from the perspective of the person on the receiving end.

They connect with you and exchange pleasantries. Then you send them a message with a link to an article you think they'd find useful and they think “Well, I didn't ask for it but sure, it looks interesting”.

Then you send another.

“Oh, OK then”.

Then another.

“What? Another one. I'm too busy for this”.

Then you ask to speak to them on the phone.

If they're not really interested it becomes uncomfortable for them.

And if more than a handful of people are “nurturing” them in this way they end up being bombarded with well-meaning messages. It ends up feeling more like spam than nurturing.

Here's the answer: if you're going to follow-up with people you'd like to have as clients in a structured and systematic way, ask their permission first.

It can be as simple as a PS in a message you send them after connecting or meeting face to face:

“By the way, I like to try to keep in touch with my new contacts by sending articles and other resources I think you'll find useful every now and then – would that be OK?”

Most won't turn you down. Those that do would have just got annoyed by your nurturing anyway (though they wouldn't have said – most of us are too polite).

And once they've said yes, they're more likely to pay attention to what you send.