How I finally got business from breakfast networking.

[TwoSteps]

Does anybody here go networking?

Up at dawn to join a room full of bleary eyed business people for breakfast & conversation.

The format's the same for most organised networking events. They start with general chat over coffee before sitting for breakfast. After eating everybody takes it in turns to stand up and present themselves and their business to the room for about a minute. This is often followed by a presentation from someone, possibly a few referrals between members and more coffee.

The 1 minute presentation is very important.

You get a whole minute where the attention of the room is on you
You have an opportunity to pitch to the room and tell everyone who you are
It improves your presentation & public speaking skills
It improves your confidence

It is worth knowing all this before you go networking or you will make the same mistake I did and waste the opportunity week after week without even knowing you are doing it.

I see other people making the same mistake and it is one that resonates around this forum like the clanging of church bells.

The mistake?

I talked about me.

The problem is, nobody cares. I mean, they're not heartless evil people. They just care more about themselves. Everybody does, that's why I talked about me.

As a fledgling financial adviser I incorrectly assumed that just because it is a (seemingly) respectable occupation and I was wearing a suit, people would want to listen. Anybody with a firm belief in their product or what they do, can automatically fall into this trap.

For weeks I would stand up and say what I do then reel off a list of all the products and services I can sell.

Nobody was interested. It was boring for them.

During this time I read a book which changed my perspective and then I read some more books and a number of threads on here.

Then I addressed the room in a very different way.

I told a story.

A story explaining all the benefits they would get without mentioning a single product.

I took them on a journey which, allowed them to imagine themselves in a situation that would require a solution and then provided the solution by describing the benefits.

It required some research, planning, script writing - testing & re-writing, practicing the inflection (tonality) working on the sentence structure and rehearsing.

And it worked like a charm.

People were curious to know more and they approached me to ask questions.

I wasn't prepared for that and slipped straight back into boring product mode!!

The following week I had prepared more qualifying questions to ask the interested people - instead of just talking at them.

Now I have my first piece of business from networking and whats-more, a referral from that first piece of business!

I'm also developing a much better understanding of how to communicate in a way that lets people know 'what's in it for them' and how I can help.

I know this isn't fastlane but I am applying skills and newly acquired knowledge that can be applied elsewhere in future when other ideas/projects start to take form.

Thanks and respect.

 

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