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Sales Masters Guild Mentor, Jo Driver, introduces up to the types of business owners that attend her Pro-Networker Training

Although these days we have social media marketing and on-line networking at our fingertips 24/7, physical face to face networking is an important part of building your business and building a reputation for becoming the go-to person for your service in your specific sector.There’s so much opportunity to network for business, however the challenge I hear all too often from people is that networking doesn’t work for them or they are not meeting the right people when out networking, so let’s look into both of these as I believe they are both closely related.

First of all, let’s get clear on one issue: if you are looking at networking as an opportunity to sell your services or product then stop right there. Networking is the time to make connections, not the time or the place for selling.

When I attend a networking session, I find it really interesting listening to the “40 second introduction / pitch” or the conversations that are happening around me in order to identify if the person can easily articulate what it is that they do, and who they do it for.

In my experience the explanation to both of these is often unclear, many focus entirely on the details of the service or product, and those, I believe, are the reasons behind why people say that networking isn’t getting them the results they desire.

Is networking an integral part of your marketing?

Networking is a marketing strategy and like any marketing you do, your message must be clearly articulated to your target audience. Your ideal client may or may not be attending the same networking event as you, but either way you just never know who the people in the room are connected to or who they could put you in touch with, but they can only do this if your “introductory pitch” sparks an interest for them to find out more or your conversations are clear enough to resonate with them.

I have trained and helped many business owners and some employees gain more business from their networking activities. One particular client that I’d like to tell you about attended one of my Pro-Networker workshops, despite running a business for a number of years.

He was lacking confidence in his ability to sell and felt quite nervous about attending networking events. In the workshop we deep dived into looking at the type of clients he currently does work for, the type of business or projects he targets his services at, who was likely to be the decision maker or the right person within an organisation that he needed to connect with, why those businesses would need his services, and what they typically wanted to gain by buying his services.

Once we gained a thorough understanding of the type of clients and work he could help with, we worked on structuring a very brief and clear answer to the “What do you do?” question. Then we worked on putting together a short Introduction that explained clearly what he did and the type of client he did it for.

Following on from that, we went deeper into different scenarios of typical conversations that he might have whilst out networking and started putting some structure into the questions he needed to ask, in order to quickly identify whether the person that he was talking to could be a potential client, or if they could provide him the name of a person within their organisation that he should be talking to, or who in their network they might be able to connect him to.

Once the conversation structure was in place he attended networking sessions on purpose, with a clearly defined strategy in place, with the confidence to have great conversations, grow his network and then of course take the next step of fine tuning what happens after the networking session and how he should follow up and keep in touch with those connections he made.

Pro-Networker Training will make a huge difference to your networking activities

Often people attend my Pro Networker workshop either because they feel they are not getting a great return from their networking activities or because they lack confidence around networking.

So if you are thinking that you are avoiding networking because you are introverted, shy, or timid, I can assure you there is a strategy, and once you know this strategy and have practiced it a few times your confidence will increase, your networking will be more on purpose and you will start seeing the benefits.

Be aware that different networking groups attract different types of business and people. Some groups are favoured by larger businesses, or more corporate, whilst others attract the small business owner or solo entrepreneur, some are industry specific, and some are sector lock out groups.

Like any marketing strategy, it is important to monitor your networking activities so that you know which networking event is giving you the best value for the money and time you spend. It is all too easy to just keep turning up at networking week after week, month after month without working out if it’s getting a good return on investment.

You should be taking into account whether there is a cost to attend or a membership to pay, the time you spend attending the event as well as the time spent travelling, and there may be the cost of a meal or drinks to include.

Pro Networker is a highly interactive day and you will go away from the day with more confidence and gain more value from your networkingevents.

Jo’s Pro-Networker Training courses are open to anyone that want to make an impact on their networking return.

You can contact Jo directly if you’d like to discuss the training in more detail before booking through her Mentors profile page.

25 way to get more customers

Jo Driver

Jo Driver is a Sales Masters Guild Personal Business Mentor

 

Jo’s transition to becoming a business entrepreneur began back in 1995, starting her own Training and Consultancy business. Jo has also built a Health & Wellness business and is a co-founding partner of JRD Property, a property investing business.

 

Find out more about Jo on her Sales Masters Guild profile page

 

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