Last week a networker contacted me and requested my help with an IT problem. Today, I was supposed to visit their office and I wanted to verify and get a time. All my communications are done through my smartphone or in person and I was sure our conversation was done via a text message. I started searching through my texts on my smartphone for our message stream. It was never found and I looked through my phone app in case it was a phone call instead. Nothing was found with their name and something else had to be done. A search was done in my google calendar for anything mentioning the contact information and another dead end.
Somewhere in this chaos I took another approach and LinkedIn was opened. The networker’s profile was searched for a cell phone number and of course nothing was listed. I found their business card and no cell number was listed! I called the office number and they were gone so a message was left. Later, they called back and we set a time.
I knew somewhere there were pictures and information on my phone and I was going to find it. An idea hit me to check LinkedIn again and this time I opened messaging and it was here! Not text messaging!
I don’t get a lot of LinkedIn messages and that’s probably why I forgot about it today. Most of my messages are phone texts, emails, and FaceBook messenger.
The moral of the story is I must remember the way I communicated with each person and put it in my contacts and calendar. Having many means to communicate can backfire on me like it did today.