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Things have moved on dramatically from the situation a few years ago when I first got involved in networking. Back then (1999), there were very few networking groups in the UK. Now there are a multitude of opportunities to network throughout every day and into the evening. Social media has made it easier to set up and promote your own event and many people and organisations do exactly that.

Sheffield SIFE is one such group. They are a student run company who are hosting their first networking event in November. They asked me on Twitter for some advice on what they need to think about to make their event a success. As they are not the first to do so, I thought I would share my ten top tips to make your networking event or networking group a success.

In the first five tips I share ideas for your preparation and what you need to know to get the event just right event before the first person shows up:

1. Manage expectations

Avoid creating just ‘another’ networking event in an already packed calendar. If you want to motivate people to come to your event, be clear both to yourself, and to your potential visitors, what you want to achieve and why you are relevant to them.

Once your purpose is clear, use that to drive your format (see tip six, coming soon) and who you invite. If you can tailor your invitations to match your outcomes, focusing on getting the right people to attend rather than simply numbers, you’ll stand a better chance of making your event a success.

Finally, be clear in all of your communications what the event is designed to achieve, why people should come, what to expect and, importantly, what is expected of them. If people will need to participate in any way, let them know in advance rather than making it a surprise.

2. The right time

Timing is everything. Rather than closing your eyes and sticking a pin into the nearest calendar, or simply checking the diary of the organisers and seeing what day you are all free, pick a date and time that will suit your attendees.

Yes, you will need to make sure that the timing is convenient for all key parties, such as the venue and speakers, as well as the organisers. Then look at the diary and ask yourself what your intended attendees like to do on that day.

It’s also important to consider what time of day will work best for your attendees. For example, if SIFE are a student body, perhaps breakfast meetings will not be the most popular choice! (Apologies for the unfair generalisation.)If your attendees are mainly parents of young children, they may not want to give up their evenings. A number of events are now being held between 4pm and 7pm, giving people most of their day in the office and letting them get home at a reasonable hour. I think this is a great option to consider, although by no means the only one.

It’s also important to make sure there are no regular, or one-off, competing events on the same day and also worthwhile checking that you don’t clash with a major sporting event or anything similar that may compete for your attendees’ attention.

3. The right place

Getting your venue right is such an important part of a successful networking event. People will judge not just the event but also you on the quality of the venue. I have heard countless horror stories of events held in a corner of a pub where people couldn’t hear the speaker because of background noise, or where it simply felt wrong.

Your venue should be accessible and easy to find, it doesn’t matter if it’s the most beautiful venue in the world if people can’t get there, or get home easily if it’s in the evening. If people will arrive or leave in the dark, consider how safe they will feel if alone. And consider disabled access too.

Hygiene is vital too. One way to check out the likely hygiene standards is to visit the toilets when looking at the venue. If they are kept clean it’s more likely that the venue as a whole has high standards.

Make sure you try the catering too if that’s to be provided. What will be served, is it of a good standard and is there enough choice, both of food and drink, for everyone who will attend?

4. Cost management

How are you going to manage the costs of putting on the event? If you are charging, choose a price that’s easy for people to administer (round numbers are good if people are paying cash on the day, you don’t want to worry about providing change) and be clear about whether there are any associated tax issues. Also make sure that one person is responsible for collecting, and banking, the revenues from the event as well as paying the bills on time.

People will want receipts, so make sure that these are available. The best approach for all is usually to arrange payment in advance online, through a site like Paypal. It makes administration easier, money will be less likely to go missing and you don’t have to worry about accounting for a large amount of cash. It also puts your mind at rest to know your costs are covered before the event starts. You may need to make some allowance for people turning up on the day though, perhaps charge them a premium for the inconvenience.

One way to offset costs is to look for sponsors. Will a friendly company provide drinks and canapés? What publicity or support can you offer the venue in return for providing their room without charge?

5. Spreading the word

If you want your event to be a success, you need to tell people about it. There’s no point getting everything else right and standing in an empty room waiting for people to turn up!

As previously mentioned, first of all be clear about whom you want to invite, based upon the desired outcome of your event. You can then send targeted invitations to those people and use social media in the right way to promote it in the right areas. For example, if you wanted to attract people in the pensions industry, you’d choose a niche social network, like MallowStreet and appropriate groups on LinkedIn focused around that industry to share details of your event.

If you want people to spread the word for you, make your message viral. Share interesting facts that others will want to share, perhaps create a simple promotional video and keep tweets to a short length so that people can easily retweet them (aim for less than 120 characters).

Once people have registered, remind them about the event and some of the interesting things they can look forward to and people they can meet. Sites like Eventbrite help you do this automatically and share the guest list in advance. The trick is to remind people regularly enough so that it is high in their mind without overwhelming them with emails, tweets and text messages.

In the second set of tips I’ll look at the event itself and what happens afterwards. From whether to create guest lists and getting the format right, through hosting to the follow up and what to do if you want to run a series of events.

If you’d like more detailed advice on running networking events, my 2005 book Building a Business on Bacon and Eggs, co-authored with Terence P. O’Halloran and Stephen Harvard Davis is available in book and kindle formats on Amazon.

Kind regards

Andy Lopata

To find out more about how to pick the right networks, implement a successful networking strategy or how to generate more referrals, please visit www.lopata.co.uk

OK, I have to put my hands up and admit my guilt. I made what many people tell me is the number one mistake when networking. And I did it in style.

On my way to the airport for my speaking trip in Vietnam last week I suddenly realised that I had forgotten to pack something. My suit, belt, shirts and shoes were all in place. Cufflinks at the ready. I had my passport and my tickets, my hotel booking and my travel insurance.

Everything was in place but one….my business cards!

I scrambled around in my passport holder and my wallet and found nine cards in total. That’s all I had for a trip to Asia complete with two speaking engagements, a gala dinner and a series of meetings. What a disaster when I was going there to speak about effective networking.

Fortunately, when people have told me in the past that not having business cards is the cardinal sin (pun unintended) for networkers, I have always disagreed with them. It is good to have a business card when people ask for it, for sure, but it is far worse not to ask for someone’s card when you want to follow up with them.

Give your card away and not ask for one back, and you cede control of the conversation.

Having said that, the last place you’d want to not have your cards available is Asia, where people pass them to each other at the beginning of a conversation out of courtesy. Explaining my predicament was very embarrassing, but I did so politely and promised in every case to send on my details by email. Which I did as soon as possible.

And that’s the key. If you don’t have cards for any reason, ask for those of people you’d like to keep in touch with and make sure you follow up promptly.

Of course, my client told me at the end of my visit that I should have sent him the artwork and he would have printed cards for my arrival! That would certainly have helped.

Kind regards

Andy Lopata

To find out more about how to pick the right networks, implement a successful networking strategy or how to generate more referrals, please visit www.lopata.co.uk

This blog originally appeared in The National Networker

Networking has moved a long way since I went to my first event some thirteen years ago. And that is a good thing. Back then it was hard to go to an event without someone thrusting their business card under your nose as soon as you walked through a door and giving you a contract, and pen with which to sign it. Almost before asking your name. There are a few people who still don’t get it and network purely to sell, but they are much fewer in number.

But they still exist. One of the main reasons networking has had a bad name in some quarters is because people attending events or joining social networks have been sold to. And that’s not why they have participated in the first place.

There is a myth in business that if you need to sell you should go to an event where your prospects will be present. Once you meet them you can give them a carefully crafted elevator pitch and close the sale. It’s led to managers sending their staff to events and judging their performance, and the business case for the event, by the number of cards they’ve collected, which they subsequently add to their sales database.

The problem with this approach is that it is ill-conceived and poorly thought through. Let’s try and look at a networking event from a logical perspective. If you go to a networking event predominantly to sell, why do you think other people have gone? Unless it is specifically a ‘meet the buyer’ event, it would be safe to say “the same thing”.

So you have a room full of people looking to sell to each other, and no one interested in buying. Everyone is in broadcast mode, and not trying to engage others in genuine conversation. Can you think of a worse place to find potential customers for your product or service?

Broadcast mode is not a good place to be in when you go to a networking event. If you broadcast and don’t receive, you will alienate people rather than attract them. Recently, I witnessed just how painful this can be. And ironically, it cost someone the opportunity to sell to someone they met at a networking event – me!

I went to a full day seminar recently. One of the speakers, let’s call him Tim, demonstrated how well his social media strategy was working – and it was very impressive. He mentioned someone in the room who looked after his social media for him, let’s call him Michael.

I was very interested in meeting Michael to find out if he did the same for other businesses. In other words, I was genuinely interested in buying from him. I mentioned it to Tim and then was caught in another conversation. Michael heard that I wanted to speak to him and looked for me. Eventually we caught up but didn’t have time for an in-depth conversation. I told him that I was interested in what he had to offer in terms of social media and gave him my card, inviting him to get in touch.

I should mention at this stage that, while selling to people you meet at networking events is to be frowned upon, if they show a genuine interest in buying from you, there is no reason at all to discourage them!
Back to Michael. I did receive an LinkedIn connection request from him the next day. This is what he said:

Hi Darryl,

Andy,

Was great to meet you at yesterday’s event.

I will send you an email with some more training videos from Tim

Keep in touch!

- Michael

It was a stunning display of attempting poorly to sell to everyone he met at the event. The greeting tells me immediately that he sent exactly the same email to everyone he met, and forgot to remove the previous recipient’s name as he did so. He did not recollect our conversation and what I clearly said I was interested in. He simply sent everyone the same sales message.

A classic example of broadcast rather than receive and engage. And it got better…

A couple of days later I received a call from Michael. After a quick and, to be honest, quite insincere greeting, he launched into a sales pitch. And not even pitching what I had already told him I was interested in. I politely interrupted his presentation, explained that this wasn’t a good time to speak but invited him to call me back and discuss the social media services he provides. We agreed a time for him to call.

Michael called me back on the appointed day, but later than the time we agreed. I explained that, once again, he had called at a bad time and suggested an alternative time. Before ending the call he wanted to ask me one simple question, “Exactly what area do you niche in?”.

I asked Michael if he’d looked at my website. After all, if you are going to speak to a prospect wouldn’t you at least do that? Once there, it doesn’t take much to find out what I do for a living. One look at my home page should give you a clue. Without needing to click or scroll it says ‘What’s Your Networking Strategy?’ ‘Networking Shop’ and ‘The Networking Blog’. There’s even a video that automatically plays of me talking about networking strategy. Let’s just say you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to have an idea about what I do!

Michael clearly hadn’t done any research, despite his protestations to the contrary. He had put my card in with all of the others he had collected at the event to pitch afterwards. He ignored our conversation and treated me in the same way as everyone else. How many other conversations did he ignore and just use them to collect a card and pitch?

Michael was only interested in selling and had tunnel vision as a result. The only thing he actually achieved was to lose a sale by chasing the wrong sale. His lazy and discourteous approach meant that he failed to listen to what I was interested in and just treated me as a number.

Networking is not sales. Yes, you can let people buy from you and, if you do the right things and build a strong relationship, you can sell through them, but never try to sell to people in the room. It’s the surest way to destroy your reputation.

Networking is about relationship building. It’s about listening. It’s about engaging.

It’s not about broadcasting and it’s definitely not about sales.

Kind regards

Andy Lopata

To find out more about how to pick the right networks, implement a successful networking strategy or how to generate more referrals, please visit www.lopata.co.uk

*The names in this article have been changed to protect the innocent, and to avoid embarrassing the very, very guilty!