--Fairness and Consistency in Communication Frequency--

There are many people in the business world who only communicate when they need something. While this might be efficient from their perspective, it does not build a good working relationship. Sometimes a nice informal "how's it going" e-mail even though you really don't have much else to say goes a long way to keeping the communication channels open.

A HUGE mistake is to ignore the other person for weeks or months on end, then all of a sudden send or leave several panic e-mails or voice-mails commanding a response immediately. Very, very uncool and rude.

The guideline I use, is I try to mirror the other person's frequency of communication, erroring on the side of communicating a little more often than the other person. However what I find this doing is surprising the other person that I dare ignore their random panic interactions.

How often should business people (who are supposedly working together) communicate? It depends, but I don't think once a month is unreasonable just to stay in touch. Again, it migth be in the form of a quick e-mail, e-mailing a website link that you think would be interesting to the other person, or perhaps even a quick voice-mail or phone call.

Speaking as a consultant that sometimes is "rented out" by others as a sub-contractor, I would strongly suggest some type of communication right before the engagement (to make sure everything is set up), perhaps a quick check in during the engagement (to make sure everything is going fine), and certainly a quick communication after the engagement (to get a debrief).

The bottom line is that if you use very infrequent communication attempts, then don't expect the other party to drop everything and jump when you need something. That is not playing fair.