Networking events offer opportunities to learn about new products and business trends. Additionally, they can be a lot of fun. Attendees can meet up with friends and make new friends.
Having success at networking events take more than just showing up.
Developing the Skills for Networking Events
Learning how to build a network at these events is simple. The purpose of this article is to explain how I used networking events to build a network numbered in the tens of thousands.
At Networking Events, Become a Career Card Collector
What I learned is that meeting new people and getting their contact information gave me the greatest value of attending a networking event. I learned from a master at networking that collecting business cards was a critical part of the process of building a database while at these events. I also learned from this person that instead of asking for a business card from a person, offer to exchange cards. This way you have a way for people you meet to add you to their database.
For some people, in offering to exchange cards shows a and interest in the people you are meeting. It was a way of saying that the time you spent with them was worth your while.
Continually expanding your network can serve you the rest of your career, long after the events of the day lose value. People in these events can turn up at other points in your life as valuable contacts. Having them already in your network can make it easy for you to sort them out and contact them.
Seek Out People Who have Common Interest
One reason people quickly become friends is that they have common interests. Listen to what people are saying about their families, their jobs, their hobbies, the books they read, the games they play, the sports teams they follow. Look for the common interests and ask them about what they think about the things that interests them. If you need a friend, behave like a friend.
The Time to Build a Career Network is Before You Need it
I was at a trade show a few years back. At the end of the day, line of people waiting for cabs could be 100 feet long. Just catching a cab could take an hour.
A man I had met at the show asked if he could join me in line and share a cab. He and I were going pretty much the same direction. I welcomed the company.
He was a senior sales executive who was at the show networking to get a new job.
He explained during the ride that he had made a huge mistake over his career. He had not built a network outside of the people he knew at his current company. For over a decade and a half, he had believed that he would never work for another company and that building relationships outside of his company was a form of disloyalty. He made it a point to distance himself from people at other manufacturers as well as people who had left his company. He made a specific effort to avoid corporate recruiters.
He said that there was a certain irony in his sharing a ride with me, a corporate recruiter he would have avoided a few weeks earlier.
He said that being at that trade show and talking with the few people he did know, he realized that he had cut himself off from opportunities that were available to many of his peers. These peers had done a better job of staying in touch with business associates throughout the industry. He was talented and accomplished. However, he did not have a workable network. He had never collected cards or saved contact information from the industry people he met at trade events or at buyer’s offices.
My Experience as a Recruiter at Networking Events
As a recruiter, my network was my business equity. Whenever I attended trade shows, I collected dozens of business cards. At the end of the day, I would return to my room and enter the information on the cards into my laptop database.
Waiting until I needed these contacts to put them in my database would have been a huge loss. Working on my database every day, I reinforced my knowledge of the people I had met. As I learned of advances in their career, I would update their files. Over time, the number of my contacts went into the tens of thousands.
When Asking for Help, Always Offer Your Help
Offering to help people when you need help yourself can sometimes be difficult.
Yet the people you contact will more greatly appreciate your contacting them if you also offer to help them. You are looking to develop professional relationships not just build a database.
You are not going to play golf or go to a movie with everyone you know in business, but you do want people to see you as a person who has their interest at heart.