HOW TO NETWORK TO WIN.

Personal brand/professional

HOW TO NETWORK TO WIN.

Unless you are a CEO, an entrepreneur, possibly, an individual who is a business owner or an employee that is eager to reverse bad performance a lot of people despise networking events. Most people that come or attend networking events are forced either by their employers or hope to change their performance by chance meetings for prospects and buyers.

The first thing you want to deal with is your mindset. Networking events are organized because there is a need for interaction. You need to understand that the meat or the purpose of the event is to stimulate interaction. ENGAGEMENT AND INTERACTION ARE THE MEAT OF NETWORKING EVENTS. u is where you bring out your A-game. This is where the rubber should meet the road.

Whether you are the life of a party or just like me an avid observer and poacher, note that meaningful interactions will determine how effective your networking activity is.

Another thing to note is that networking is a sales and marketing activity but also a platform for product and business development. This is the perfect place to build a sales funnel. A sales funnel is an activity or process of streamlining your sales pipeline and you want to be able to structure this in the most practicable way. One of the ways you can achieve this is by understanding the target, market, and persona of those people in the networking event.

How do you do this?

  • Observation: You will possibly have to look at data. The attendance lists. Come on, this is a business war, and you must use this tactic that wins. You must look at who is at the event and milk that opportunity.
  • Positioning: After snooping around, you might want to be conspicuous enough to stimulate conversation and engagement and eventually “meet after the meeting”. Yes, this event will end but that is when the business begins. While some people might lad business deals in the networking event or share business contacts, statistics have shown that this might not be more than the 20% mark. 80% of attendees go back with any form of meaningful engagement. That is a waste of opportunity. To sweat the 80% opportunity, you must have effective positioning skills that will win that for you. Name tags, ID cards, and following up on the organizers are sure ways of making this happen.
  • Nurturing: Look at networking events like going on a first date. Without following up on the contacts or the organizers of the event, you will be missing a lot of opportunities in having chance at striking a deal or moving to the point of negotiation. While some first dates are memorable, a lot of them are awkward. This second meeting up which is the follow up will help smoothen out engagement. DON’T TREAT A NETWORKING EVENT LIKE A ONE-NIGHT STAND. While chemistry is allowed, we all know that one-night stands are not a win-win model, at least for networking events. You need to nurture relationships to get the best out of them.

So, if you are attending a networking event you must be ready to

  1. Interact
  2. Engage
  3. Arouse
  4. Follow-up
  5. Meet after the meeting.

Intentionality is crucial and deliberateness is essential to make the best of your networking event.

I will be speaking on how to negotiate when you eventually get a meeting scheduled after a successful networking event.  Don’t forget to be part of the upcoming Developing Business Engagement Skills- Coaching & Networking Session (BES). If you have questions that you would like to ask, please feel free to email your questions to info@rosewindowconsulting.com or chat with us on WhatsApp through our official handle 09024259529. roasting your game is the fastest way of making the best out of your networking event and turns into a business opportunity.

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