A short piece about going to networking events

Before you go to a networking event, you need to find one that is worth going to.

You need to know why you’re going—in other words, your purpose.

You need to know what you want to get from attending the meeting—in other words, your outcomes.

Some misunderstandings corrected

1  Many people misunderstand the purpose of a networking event. It isn’t to get customers, or even leads. It certainly isn’t to ‘sell to the room’.

We believe that the most useful purpose of a networking event is to find out how you can help other people (and then to help them).  Givers gain, as one networking organisation puts it.

2  Many people also think that networking is attending a networking event.  It isn’t.

Networking is developing relationships with people who may join your network.  You develop relationships by giving enough time to them in one to one meetings.

What to do

If you know your purpose and outcomes, your actions at a networking event should be something like:

1  Speak for five to ten minutes to as many different people as you can (if you need to, ask the host for introductions to people he or she thinks you should speak to).  Remember a valuable purpose is to discover how you can help them, not to take any help they might offer from them.

2  If/when they ask the question, “what do you do?”, reply by saying something like, “may I illustrate that with a story about a client?” and then go on to tell a good, concise, relevant story.

3  Collect their business cards.

4  Subsequently invite them to a one to one.  If you’re just starting out, invite everyone, without exception, to a one to one meeting.  You simply do not know who will be fruitful unless you talk to them.

5  Follow up those people with whom you had good one to ones.going to networking events.

Related material
>  Networking guide

© 2015 Jeremy Marchant Limited . by Jeremy Marchant . updated 7 may 2015 . image by Jeremy Marchant from Free images