7 Surefire Tips To Make Networking Simple

Networking events are a fantastic opportunity for you to get out there and talk about your business to like-minded people and potential customers/partners.

Whoever you do meet at these events, it’s crucial that you come prepared. With that in mind, we’ve created a networking checklist designed to help you work the room with purpose at your next event. Let’s get started:

Prepare an elevator pitch

It’s important that you memorise a snappy description of what your company does, what it stands for, and what makes it matter. If you convey confidence at this initial stage, conversations will flow much more easily. Your elevator pitch should be no longer than 30 seconds. Make it quick, concise and straight to the point

Relax

It sounds simple but it can require some effort. Try and remain calm before and during the event. Nerves will come across in your body language and people will immediately see this.

What’s your goal?

What do you ultimately want from the event? Referrals? Investment? Promotion? Whatever it is, you need to know what your intentions are. Meaningful conversations are more likely if you have a clear purpose.

Have your business card at the ready

Obvious but absolutely essential. Don’t attend any event without your business card – how else are people going to contact you? Ensure that you have brought an adequate number and that all the information on the card is up-to-date.

Listen

One of the key things you need to do when networking is to listen to others. Don’t just push your own agenda. You might just hear something highly useful.

Focus on quality not quantity

Don’t concentrate on collecting as many cards as possible. Focus on the most relevant people rather than hopping from one person to another. It’s all well and good ending the evening with lots of business cards, but if most of them have no relevance to you – then it can be a wasted effort.

Follow up

This is key. The day after the event, look over the cards that you collected and email the people you connected with, just reintroducing yourself (but don’t be salesy). Even if they may not seem relevant now, you never know how helpful they could be in the future.

There you have it, seven quick tips to help you nail the networking game. Leave a comment if you think we’ve left anything off!

At Business Training MadeSimple we regularly hold networking events around digital marketing. Check out the next free event here.

Interested in finding out how MadeSimple can help your business start, run and grow? Take a look here.