Those of you with marketing or advertising experience are probably familiar with the idea of a "call to action." Typically in reference to an advertising piece a call to action is simply what you want the reader to do. Call now, register, upgrade, order, RSVP, etc. A few experiences this week made me realize that frequently in networking situations there's no clear call to action.

Take a typical elevator pitch for example: Hi, I'm Bob with XYZ company. We help people with some type of problem fix their problem, and we're real darn good at it. Bob with XYZ company... Ok. Now what? What does Bob want us to do. What he's lacking is a call to action. Should we call him if we have the problem he mentioned, or would he prefer an e-mail? Is he looking for people who are displaying a particular identifiable symptom? If Bob were more specific about what he wanted us to do he would likely get much better results.

In another incident I reached out to someone, who I didn't know, who requested some help. Their request was vague so I asked for a little more clarification in an e-mail. All I got back was essentially a status report. While mildly interesting, it didn't help me understand how to help them. Nor was there any type of request. So, I simply archived the e-mail and moved on. What a lost opportunity.

So what's your call to action? If you're in need of something you have to ask for it and ask for it specifically.

Here's another lesson I've learn repeatedly from e-mail interactions. You can really only ask for 1 thing per e-mail. Even if it's just information if you ask for 3 or 4 details you'll likely get one or more, but rarely will you get all of the information you needed. This is even more true if there's a specific action that must be taken. If you ask people to DO more than one thing per message I would expect your results on average to be <1.

Think about your interactions whether they be an elevator pitch, a conversation, a phone call, e-mail, whatever. If you need something ask for that one thing specifically and clearly. I think you'll see your odds of actually getting that one thing improve dramatically.

Happy Networking!

-Scott Ingram
NetworkInAustin.com