If you're in business and you're in sales, you're probably doing a whole bunch of networking right now. What I'd like to do is give you three quick tips on how to make your networking more effective and to make sure you get more return on that networking investment.
The first thing is to not think about your networking in a linear fashion. You never know who knows who. If you're only networking with the people who fall under your industry umbrella, you are 100% missing opportunities from someone like me who may not be under your umbrella, but who knows thousands of people and would be happy to make contacts and connections for you once we get to know each other.
Number two, and this one is so self-evident, yet so many people forget it. Follow up and follow through. Follow up on all of the introductions that are made for you. When you go to these events, and when you go to these luncheons, make sure to follow through and reach out to people for a one-on-one conversation or lunch, and see where the relationship can go.
Lastly, there's a cliché. The cliché is givers get. I don't believe that. Givers don't always get because there are real takers out there. The fact is, when you're giving introductions and you're making contacts for people, and you notice it's not coming back to you in any way, shape, or form, you have to be proactive. You need to ask for some of these same people to think about you, to make an introduction for you. Make it easy for them, send them a PDF of what you do. You have to ask. You can't always assume that they're going to be thinking of you. Unfortunately, the majority of people are just not doing that.
There are many more ideas, many more tips. Contact me at adrianmiller.com, and I'm happy to share them with you. Thanks.