Do you have 5 minutes? Let’s work together through these 4 steps to develop your networking strategy so that you can attend your next event in confidence.

• Define Your Networking Goals. Before you do anything, write down your networking goals. Keep in mind, they may be different from event to event. For instance, are you looking for customers, referral partners, or even job-seeking? Being able to articulate your purpose and goals is the key step to your networking success.

Step 1: Write down 2-3 networking goals.

• Prepare Your Elevator Speech. Now that you know what your networking goals are, it’s time to prepare your elevator speech. Again, you may have several based on your purpose! In preparing your elevator speech, which is a brief, personal commercial to introduce yourself, it’s important to be thoughtful, thorough, and concise.  

Step 2: Time yourself for one minute and write/type out a brief intro to yourself. Don’t overthink it!

• Pick the Right Networking Events. There are a variety of networking events you can attend so it’s important to choose the ones that best suit the needs of your business and networking goals. Carefully consider your goals and how the attendees or sponsoring organizations will help you to meet those goals. For instance, you may attend an industry specific event while job-seeking or a community networking event to simply re-energize your lead list.

Step 3: Add 2 networking events to your calendar this month based on the goals you set above.

• Follow Up. I’m sure you’ve never heard this tip from me before 😉 But, seriously… follow up. This is where the real work of networking begins and it is, arguably, the most important step. You’ve done all this work developing your goals and elevator speech and attending networking events. Don’t let all that effort go to waste by skipping this step.

Step 4: Block networking follow up or lead development time into your schedule.

 

Are you ready to tackle the networking scene? Try out your new networking strategy at our next Nashville Locals event.

For more tips or direct help in developing your networking strategy or lead development and marketing campaigns, give us a call at Piccolo Marketing at 615-348-7768.