We recently held a webinar on how to be awesome at business networking, and here is a video of that event. Below are the slides available for download.
Our tips start with making some mindset changes as you try to be a better networker. The first change is to shift from a fruit-picking mindset to one of planting seeds.
We also want you to shift from seeking prospects at networking events to seeking partners. As you talk to potential partners, keep the rule of reciprocity in mind and apply it; we explain it in the webinar.
Getting Out There
The tips that we discuss in this webinar won’t do you much good if you don’t get out there and network. We recommend setting a quota for the number of events you aim to attend each week or month.
Building Your Pitch
A strong sales pitch can help when networking, and we provide tips in this webinar recording.
Working a Room
There are some small things you can do to improve how you work a room. One tip is to arrive at the event around the time it starts, which can make it easier to meet people and work the room. We provide tips on meeting more people and breaking into conversations during the webinar recording.
Navigating Conversations
The webinar will provide you with tips on how to structure and handle conversations at networking events. A couple of those tips are to keep most of the conversation focused on the prospect and to keep each conversation to a maximum of five minutes, so you can keep working the room and meet as many new contacts as possible.
Post-Event Tasks
There is a simple, productive process you can follow right when you get home or return to your office after a networking event to improve your networking results significantly. This process is to go through the business cards that you collected, and for each, follow these steps:
- Invite to connect on LinkedIn
- Add the contact to your CRM
- Send a follow-up email
- Try to schedule a one-on-one
- Add the contact to an appropriate email campaign
Meeting One-on-One
When you meet one-on-one with your contacts, learn more about them and identify ways you can help. This will help you to build relationships and could help motivate your contacts to try to help you – the rule of reciprocity.
Staying Top of Mind
Here are some steps that you can take to stay fresh or top of mind with the referral partners that you meet when networking:
- Add the contact to an email drip campaign
- Produce helpful content (blog, ebooks, videos, etc.)
- Post content on the website
- Send emails with content to partners
- Share content on social media and LinkedIn
