Can you network and be GDPR compliant?

If you go out to network, you know that one of the most natural things in the world is to ask someone for their business card or for them to ask you for yours.

Having got those business cards back to the office you are keen to follow up and make contact.  We’ve all been taught to email or phone and make contact.   Some of the naughtier networkers will even just add all those lovely names and emails to a mailing list.

Under the new GDPR rules, you are going to have to show you got permission to do any of those things.  It is not good enough to say – they gave me their business card so by implication I could contact them any way I liked and as often as I liked.

Did you get permission to hold their data?

Did your business contact give you permission to:

•       Phone?
•       Text?
•       Email ?
•       Add them to a list?
•       Add them to your sales database?
•       Pass their details on as a lead for someone else?

Can you prove it?

If you can't then you are going to find GDPR compliance to be a bit of a problem. It's not just about online information collecting - but everywhere you collect personal data.

GPDR is all about informed consent

Let’s imagine you were out with a group of friends and there was someone new in the group you liked the look of.  At the end of the evening, you give them your number and say call me.

Did you agree that they could call you all the time?

Did you agree they could send you hundreds of dodgy texts? 

Did you agree they should stalk you and follow you everywhere on and off line?

You wouldn’t expect to be on their Christmas card list or invited round to meet their Mum.

It is inappropriate to have that much contact at such an early stage and even though you gave them your number you did not consent to all of that.

How often do we do the equivalent of the over-keen date with our customers?

Be the Prince Charming of Data Collection

Did you ever meet someone you really wanted to go out with who didn’t take things too fast? You longed for them to call, you hoped they’d follow through.  

Would you rather be the suitor that someone is really wanting to hear from or the slightly creepy stalker who is moving way too fast?

GDPR is a whole rebuild of how you think about permission

GDPR is a whole new way of looking at what permissions you need when to do what.  You are not going to be able to say – they gave me their phone number so of course, I had permission to do anything I wanted with them.

Implied permission (they must have wanted me to do that) and a lot of well-established marketing techniques are going to need an overhaul.

Would you like to know more about GPDR?

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