Last week I attended my first face-to-face networking event – speed networking. To put it mildly, let’s say I initially wasn’t keen but I was being ‘persuaded’ by a friend and I had a moment of weakness and eventually caved in to her badgering.
For those that don’t know, speed networking is like speed dating but with the aim of finding new work and business contacts rather than romance. At the event I attended we had two minutes with each person, giving us a minute each to explain to the other what we do and what we can offer. When the two minutes was up a nerve-shredding horn sounded, leaving us to scramble around, wild-eyed, looking for our next victim, ahem, potential client.
Sounds fun doesn’t it? In actual fact I exaggerate (slightly) and the experience was far less horrendous than I envisioned it would be, bearing in mind how terrified I was beforehand. And I may, if I’m lucky, have actually landed a new project through it. This is really quite surprising as I suspect I am the least convincing networker ever (and here I am not exaggerating at all).
For any other networking newbies out there here is what I learned.
Do
- Take some business cards and give them out. Request them from other people too. They help you to remember who you have spoken to and follow up any conversations you have had.
- Think about what you’re going to say in advance. I didn’t do this in as much detail as I should have and felt a bit tongue-tied with nerves at first. Try to think of something brief that summarises neatly what you can offer and to who. Work on a spiel that you are comfortable with and that doesn’t leave you wincing at your own bad sales patter. I really don’t think you need to be too salesy at all, though, and a hard sell from others would put me off personally.
- Be flexible. Having a plan about what you’ll say will help you feel more confident. However, you don’t have to spout it robotically every time the horn goes. Once you get a bit of confidence you’re likely to interact more naturally, rather than babbling maniacally at the other person and then swapping over and gazing into the middle distance when it’s their turn.
- Follow up. If you meet anyone who you had an interesting chat with, do send a quick email reiterating that it was good to meet them and a link to your site etc.
- Go along and be open. When I first arrived and we were being herded into the networking room, I actually considered fleeing I was that nervous. However, all the people I met were really nice and they put me at my ease. At the end my confident friend who had roped me in commented that I seemed to be finding it easier to gabble along than her!
Don’t
- Leave getting business cards printed until the last minute. I speak from experience after I spent the day leading up to the event tearing from printing shop to printing shop in desperation. Technology blips and opening hours were conspiring against me.
- Absent-mindedly put other people’s business cards on top of your own when they hand them to you. You might, if you’re me, end up handing out someone else’s business card instead of your own as you casually take one from the top of the stack. Slick and professional-looking, no?
- Worry. It really isn’t that bad. As someone who finds the “selling myself” side of self-employment pretty difficult, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I enjoyed it, but it was nowhere near as bad as I had feared. Loads of other people there confided that they were a bit nervous/sceptical as well and this made me feel a lot better.
So, in for a penny, in for a pound, I am now considering attending the next event which involves attending a breakfast meeting at some truly ungodly hour where you address the whole table at once and talk about yourself and your business. And now I come to think about it, that is even more terrifying than the idea of speed networking. How will l I torture myself next?
Do you network? Are you a freelancer who relishes the opportunity to network? For the benefit of us nervous networkers, please share your tips! Or, like me does the idea terrify you? Talk about it over at the forum.
Feb 11, 2009
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