As many of you know, I love to network. The objective of networking events is to meet new businesspeople and to see how you can help them grow their business. Please do not plan on going to sell people in the room, this will turn off and/or offend people that are genuinely trying to help others. Also understand that network is about multiplication. If you head in with the approach of selling in that environment, you may pick up one client. Networking is all about tapping into the network of people that are all interconnected. If you make a positive impression at a networking event and genuinely try to help someone else without thinking about yourself the dividends will come back to you many times over. To this goal, I have built a page that is all about networking in the greater Raleigh region. Please check this page out weekly as I update it often.
Looking forward to meeting you at one of these events soon!
Best practices for networking…
1) Come with a positive attitude.
2) Come with a servant’s heart and have the intention of helping others.
3) Be bold and outgoing, walk up to people and introduce yourself, that is why we are all here.
4) Know that you are not the only one that feels alone, uncomfortable, and like an outsider, we all do to some degree when we first go to a meeting we have never been to before.
5) Ask about the other person’s business and try to truly understand what that person does and what you can do to help them connect with others that might benefit their business, and/or clients that might be a good fit for them.
6) LISTEN with a genuine intent to help that person grow their business.
7) Plan to set up a one-on-one conversation in the future if you feel you can provide them with value going forward.
8) Treat your interaction as a future relationship that will take time to build and grow, plan to give because you care, without expecting anything in return.
9) Keep your introduction about your business short, sweet and to the point; a quick fifteen second introduction would be sufficient.
10) Be respectful of people’s time.
11) Be prepared to let someone know what a good “connection” for you looks like. This does not mean a good “prospect” to sell to, certainly you can share that too. A connection is someone that can team up with you and help feed you leads while you help feed them leads.
12) Smile and have a good time.
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