Busy After #ASW13? Follow Me To Get Caught Up!

Now that Affiliate Summit West is officially over and we have all (hopefully) returned home, it is time to get all caught up.  Most of the attendees arrived on Saturday and many left on Wednesday.  If that is the case, then you have 5 days of work to catch up on.  In addition, you likely met a number of affiliates, merchants, innovators, etc., at the conference.  Now it is time to get the process moving.  We attend conferences to learn and network.  Neither of those are achievable goals unless you follow up in a timely fashion while simultaneously catching up on your workload from missed days. Below are five steps to get you ahead of the game and back to being the amazing person that you are!

Step 1: Move all of your newsletters, daily deals, etc., into a new folder and read them later.

• Perk: This will allow you to skim your emails and prioritize them as necessary.
• Side note: Set up a rule in your inbox so this always happens. Keep your inbox a lean, mean sorting machine

Step 2: First come, first serve.  Responding in this order keeps everything fair (unless there is an emergency of course).  I like to start an email with this, “Sorry for the delay in my response, I was attending the Affiliate Summit West conference…”

• Perk: It lets people know that you were not just home sleeping and that you were trying to improve your already amazing skill-set.
• Side note: Did you previously setup an away message?  Next time you should consider it.

Step 3: Check it, prioritize, and respond accordingly.

• Perk and Side note: This can be a great way to break up the email reading

Step 4: Contact every one of them!  Just because you may not need their service now, does not mean you will not in the future!  The same goes for incoming emails.

• Perk: A friendly email and/or response can go a long way!  You know the old saying, “don’t burn any bridges”.  This is where it happens.
• Side Note:  Try to get to this point AFTER you are caught up with emails, but no longer than 3 days after you return.  Too soon can be too much.  Too late will be just that…too late. You can also check out Amber’s post titled Final Day Of ASW: What To Do With All Of Those Business Cards?

Step 5: Now that you have responded to your emails, returned your voicemails, and reached out to your new contacts from #ASW13, you are probably exhausted!  Stay sharp and go play a game of ping-pong…you have earned it.

• Perk: Who doesn’t enjoy some R&R time!?
• Side note:  Make sure your work is done first…

Following the process above and working to have it completed in 3-4 business days will be imperative to keeping your long-term sanity.  The basic gist of everything is to be caught up, and ready to go as soon as possible.  Obviously, there will be a few deviations to the “plan” but adjust as well as you can.