So, you have an active account on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Sphinn, Digg, YouTube, and all of the other social media tools and forums. You have a blog that you submit content to on a regular basis (hopefully more often than I do to my personal blog). Is there anything you’re missing? You bet your sweet patootie!
If you are not taking some valuable time to rub elbows in your local community, you’re doing yourself a gross disservice. People are much more likely to go out of their way for people they have met in person than those they have only talked to over the phone (let alone email). Whether the end result of your networking is to garner more business, find a new job, or even just learn something new for your hobby or profession, people who you physically meet are more willing to invest their time in your efforts.
If a person you physically network with doesn’t personally hold the keys to what you are looking for they are more likely to recommend someone in their network who might. They might even do you the favor of forwarding your information on to this other person and putting in a personal introduction to boot. This is especially true if you are able to make a personal connection that tells them, “Yeah, this person is like me in some regard.”
Almost every community has some form of social and professional networks in place. They can be at a town level, a county level, or even a state / metropolitan city level. They can be general networks, such as an area “Professional Networking Group”. These types of groups provide business professionals of varying backgrounds the ability to meet with those that live in the same area.
These groups can also be more focused networks, such as a “.NET Developer Group” or “Search Engine Marketing Group”, where the topic of discussion is pretty much set and people with the same interest(s) gather to discuss said topic.
Even town softball leagues are networking groups. They are socially focused for the most part, although I’ve seen business relationships forged from these groups as well.
Finding a networking group is not all that hard, especially when you have the internet at your disposal. For town level groups, what you can’t find online you should be able to locate via the local library or town hall. For more regional and focused networking groups, searching Google for a “user group” on a topic will often net results on group meetings. I find Meetup.com to be a very good resource for finding people who share my interests and the groups that are in my area for specific topics.
Once you have found an event you would like to attend, you now need to execute. I have compiled a simple checklist to make sure you make the most out of each event.
- What to Bring:
- Business cards (and plenty of them) – Don’t count on people you will be talking to having a pen and paper. You want them to have a card that gives them your name, title, company (if applicable) and contact information.
- A pen that you know will write – Since impressions are part of the game, try to bring something that states you are a professional. I’m not saying you have to go out and buy a Waterman, but make sure it’s not a pen you’ve recently chewed on. I recommend that any time you receive a business card you write notes from your discussion on the back. What better way to make sure you can add a personal touch to future discussions with that person and remember them from a potentially large stack of cards?
- Note Pad – This will be for the few people you want to take down information on who didn’t bring a card (or ran out of them). It will also be a good place to take general notes if something you discuss is worthy of follow up (a website you want to look at when you get home, for instance).
- Arrive on time, not halfway through the event. I even like to arrive early if possible. This makes sure I get a chance to introduce myself to everyone as they arrive. When you show up late you are often going to find the group has broken into several discussions. You will find it harder to break into a discussion already underway than you will to contribute to a discussion that you helped to initiate.
- Seek to learn something about the person you are talking to before telling them about yourself. First off, people tend to feel comfortable talking about themselves at these types of events. They then tend to be more receptive to listening to you if they feel like they’ve been heard. A good ice breaker is to ask them flat out, what their name is and then follow up with why they are at the event.
- Don’t perform a hit-and-run. The people who get the least out of networking events are generally those that float around from person to person selling their goods or services. They walk up to you and say, “Hi, I’m Bill. I’m selling this product. Do you want this product? No?!?” (moving on to the next person) “Hi, I’m Bill. I’m selling…” Once you’ve fired off the big gun there’s very little reason for someone to want to learn more about you if they’re not interested in what you’re bringing to the group. I find it a lot more useful to participate in a discussion, even if it’s more social than goal oriented, and show I know what I’m talking about to my level of expertise. The topics of why you’re there and what you do will come up. A true test of whether you’re doing this right is to measure how many people ask for your business card versus how many people you have to offer it out to. Are you pushing your information onto people or are they requesting it from you?
- Don’t drink to excess. Remember, you are looking to keep a professional image at these events. It’s ok to have a drink or two, but if you’re starting to feel a little bit buzzed it’s time to take your foot off the gas. Don’t run the risk of giving the impression that you’re a slurring drunk (even if you are one in real life).
- Follow up the next day with a personal email. Make sure you try to connect with the people you talked to the following day. This is where those notes you wrote on the back of each business card will really come in handy. If the person mentions that they have to work on the yard this weekend in idle conversation, wish them luck on completing it. It shows you were listening to them (big bonus points). Ask them to connect with you on LinkedIn / Facebook / etc.
While many of us put a lot of importance on our social media network, it is at least equally important to make sure we spend time “pressing the flesh”. You are more likely to interact on a consistent basis with the people in your community, whether that’s to garner more business, find a new job, or even just learn something new for your hobby or profession.
If you’re interested in learning more about networking groups near you, please feel free to drop me an email at ghabrecht@onwardsearch.com. I’m also on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehabrecht.
