Networking   (Part I)

Learning to mingle and to follow-up with business contacts could be the best thing you can do to promote yourself, your service or your product.

Eight ideas to increase your success with networking include:

  1. Identify the type of person you want to meet; i.e. the purchasing officer.
  2. Identify where you would likely encounter them; i.e. what associations would they belong to?  What conferences meetings or trade shows would they attend?
  3. Create an objective around how many of these types of encounters you will need to attend in a week, month or year.
  4. Review the list of attendees before an encounter so you can search for the people you want to talk to.
  5. Be prepared with business cards, a pen, a notebook and a smile.
  6. Arrive early so you can start networking when the group is small and less intimidating.
  7. Approach people who are standing by themselves.
  8. Shake hands.   Introduce yourself in 30 seconds or less. Describe the service you provide to your clients in one or two sentences.