Business Networking Events Are About Meeting People and Building Relationships

Sometimes it pays to return to the basics. So let’s pay a little visit to business networking 101. If you’ve been attending these events so frequently that you’ve become a bit bored or jaded and only spend time with people you know or if you are a complete novice, hopefully you will find something of value here.

Like anything that we do repeatedly, attending business networking events can become run of the mill. So, how do you spice things up when this happens? One of the best ways is to do what you might do in your daily routine when you get bored. You shake things up. If you are accustomed to driving to and from work the same way, day in and day out, every now and then you might alter your route. Here’s how to do the equivalent of altering your route when it comes to the routine of business networking events.

Go To Give Not To Get

Remind yourself why you are attending. The purpose of business networking marketing events is to become a familiar and trusted face in your particular community or industry. The idea is that you see these people often enough that you build relationships. You become helpful to them. And they become helpful to you. People like to do business with those they know and trust.

Take a Vacation

If you are a regular at a specific event, skip that event once in awhile. Of course if you are the organizer, you can’t skip it. If you are simply a longtime attendee, find another event that you’ve never attended perhaps one in a different industry that may or may not be relevant to your business just for the practice of seeing how you function in a room where you are not known. Think of it as vacationing in a different country. At first, stand back for while and just people watch. Watch for how people respond to others and see if you can tell who is enjoying the event for the right reasons and try to identify those who seem bored, shy and perhaps don’t know why they are there. Listening and observing can be the best way to learn. Stepping out of your routine can help you feel refreshed and reinvigorated when you return to your usual event.

Speak Up

Another way to bust through the monotony of business networking events is to offer to be a speaker at an upcoming event. That will get the adrenaline flowing! Challenge yourself to present something unique about your business or service. That way people will get to know more about you, your abilities and your business.

Very likely, people you have not met will approach you at future events to comment on your presentation. Perhaps you’ll be invited to speak at other events.

Notes for the Novice

If you are completely new to business networking marketing events, be sure you are clear about why you are attending. Like I said before, the purpose of attending these events is to build relationships first and foremost by becoming familiar and helpful to those people we meet.

Being open minded, friendly and interested is a given. Overcoming shyness and the fact that we may not be naturally gifted at networking can be personal goals. But the purpose never changes. The idea is to meet people and find out how you can help them. In other words, build good will.

Another reason to attend is for the sheer joy of human interaction. We spend so much time on our computers and devices. Always turn them off when at networking events. And look into the eyes of the person you are meeting. We don’t want to forget what it’s like to have one-on-one interactions with another human being. Reason enough to hit the next business networking marketing event.

Go! Meet people! Have fun! The payoffs are sure to come.