TEN Key TIPS to Successful Networking

1. Start with a plan – just like in business you should have a plan going into networking events. Who are the people/businesses to speak to that will be beneficial to me? How am I going to connect with them and how could they be beneficial for future business ventures.
2. Be selective, while no networking is too much networking. Your time as an entrepreneur is precious, so you should be selecting events and opportunities for network that are strategically relevant to the goals mentioned in the previous point.
3. The “Hostess Principle” – At the event you are networking with, find an individual or small group, go up to them and stick out your hand to introduce yourself. Have the mindset almost that you are the conveyor of the event and are wanting to make everyone here feel comfortable. Questions and conversation starters of how they are finding the event, what brought them here are great leads into a further conversation. Remember, a hostess puts others first. This initially will allow you to make anyone you talk to feel instantly more comfortable engaging I conversation with you.
4. Make ‘Quality Connections, not Quantity’. Getting a lot of business cards is useful for outreach, but making quality connections with honest genuine conversation is much more important. You want to start building a relationship not just a connection, and to build a relationship you need face to ace communication not just a business card to make an online connection with later.
5. Remember to foster your new connections. While you might have just made around 30 new linked in connections at the event, you should still be actively engaging with these connections. Linked in is a vital part of modern entrepreneurship and you should be treating it that way. When you see on your feed that one of your new or existing connections has achieved something, take a minute to congratulate them, letting them know you still have an interest beyond your initial conversation at the event.
6. You will only get out what you offer. You should not just expect your connections to provide value to you, but you should also be actively trying to provide value to your connections expecting nothing in return. This is what will set you apart from most other connections that person has made in their life.
7. You have to get to know a person to build a relationship with them, you can’t skip this step and expect to build a valuable business relationship with someone. This is particularly important in many eastern cultures where building a good acquaintance with someone comes before building any sort of business relationship.
8. Find a common ground you possess with the person you are networking with in order to build an engaging conversation from this. Avoid religion & politics or any other highly opinionated subjects and instead focus on ideas, concepts and other more open topics.
9. Trust is the foundation of a relationship and commerce; every transaction be it monetary or otherwise requires a level of trust. Being organised plays a big part of building trust, if you for example promise to introduce the person you’re networking with to someone but forget due to being unorganised you lose reliability and trust. It’s also worth remembering that trust builds trust.
10. As previously mentioned, allow yourself to give out information, references and contacts to people you network with to not only take, but also provide value.

After taking these 10 principles into account I have found myself being much more successful at the networking events I have attended since then.

Photo Credit:
jens johnsson