Daryl Vickers of networx4business takes you through a few “golden rules” in this month’s article.
The Blink of an Eye
January has gone by in the blink of an eye, and I hope you have managed to attend some local networking events to try out my tips and tricks from January’s edition. If not, make February the month you put networking to the test for your business. Your business will thank you for it.
Last month, I spoke about finding the right networking meeting for you, so this month I’ll be starting the journey of showing you how to get the best from your networking meeting of choice. My first golden rule of networking is to work out what exactly it is you want to achieve from being a member at the meeting you have decided to commit to.
Spend some time thinking of some really specific goals and targets you would like to achieve, and I don’t mean more work, more contacts or more money. Think about the businesses you would like introductions to that would have a huge impact on your business and bottom line. Think big. If you don’t know what you want to achieve from your investment, how are you meant to tell the other businesses in the room who are there to support you?
Speak Passionately
Golden rule number two is never, ever, ever sell to the room. If you speak passionately and with impact about your business, the people you meet at your event will naturally come to you if they require your services. Nothing puts people off more than being sold to. It is a networking no-no.
The final golden rule for this month is to make sure you prepare what you are going to say before going to a networking event. Please don’t try to wing your pitch if the chair allows the time to talk to the room. So many people tell me they think about what they are going to say on the way in their car.
Plan what you say around what you want to achieve from attending the meeting. Be specific about the names of companies and individuals you want to be introduced to. This may mean doing some homework before preparing your pitch, but it will be so worth the effort, I promise.
Eye Contact
Try to remember what you want to say so you can make eye contact with the room whilst you do your pitch. It’s not great to read off a sheet of paper, but that said, I’d rather that than not to have prepared anything at all.
I’ll talk about the structure of your pitch in more detail in the March edition, but until then, if you have any questions you would like to ask about networking, please get in touch with me at daryl@networx4business.co.uk
That’s it for now, but I’ll be back in March with more game-changing tips for business owners. Have a wonderful, wonderful February.
Daryl – daryl@nerworx4business.co.uk.
Images by Gavin Priest.
Featured image: Rob Massam of The High Performance Project (l) and Carl Hughes of HDS Architectural.
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Author: Daryl Vickers
Daryl is the owner of networx4business, a networking group that runs four meetings on the Wirral (Silk Road, Start-Yard, Arthurs of Hoylake and Mere Brook Hotel), five in Cheshire (The Woodcote Hotel, Little Owl, The Cheshire Cat, The Farmers Arms and Old Hall Farm Pub) and four in North Wales (Maesgwyn Hall, Caffi Dai, Rossett Hall Hotel and Alexander’s in Mold). All the meetings have a structure and a purpose, and many members say coming to a networking group has got them out of their comfort zone and has increased their confidence when talking about their business. Networx was established as Daryl was getting frustrated with the cost of other networking groups, as well as their formality and frequency. He believes that networking works best when members are relaxed and not under pressure to bring referrals, or targeted on them. In this way, any business or referral passed over is more genuine and better qualified.
