Three Lessons from our 100% Networking Event

We recently had a 100% Networking Business Breakfast and there where 3-key mistakes business owners were making that we were able to fix.

And I wanted to share these with you.

Mistake #1

Not being clear on WHO.

It may seem simple, but if you are not crystal clear on who you want to get introduced to, people cannot help you. There are three categories that connections your are looking for fall into

1. Customers

2. Strategic Partners

3. Support for you and your business/life

At any one networking event you should on be focusing on one category and in this category you need to know exactly who your ‘avatar’ is. The more detail and clarity you have around this the easier it is for people to help you connect.

So when you think you are clear on WHO you want to connect with – dig deeper…

Mistake #2

How to find the connections in conversation.

You see when having a normal conversation its hard to really find connections. It just doesn’t come up. So we change this on our head through our “6 Degrees of Networking” Game. What this does is gives the structure and formula for you to be able to openly talk about who you want to get connected with and it allows you to have constructive brainstorming on how you can get introduced to those connections.

If you go into networking just ‘chatting’ you won’t get the true results that are possible.

Mistake #3

How to connect.

Now this part is probably the most critical and where it gets messed up. There are so many mistakes that happen at this stage that it normally means nothing happens. The mistakes are from being too pushy, now relationship with the person connecting, no understanding of what you do and how you will do it, no understanding of how you will treat their connection to people not making it a priority.

This results in people not making an effort and following through with facilitating the connection or they just don’t set you up well, which just turns into a cold lead.

So you need to be able to take the person on a journey that show them the benefit for their connection, what you will do once introduced (No-one wants to send a contact to someone to be sold to), what the benefit is and how you can make this simpler for the person.

So, they are my 3-big takeaways from our recent networking event. If you improve these three areas in your networking I guarantee you will get better results.