Growing a Business: One Contact At A Time – Episode 3 – Creating Your Own Luck – Part 2
Are you being intentional when you network? Are you using your time wisely when you are connecting with a number of different people at a chamber event? In this episode, Caleb Taylor sits down with business coach Clay Clark (former US Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year) to talk about how to intentionally network at different events. If you’re not being wise with your time wall at these events, you will find that you were spending time with too many people that cannot create value for your business. What you must do is make sure that you connect with as many people as possible, and quickly identify which ones will create value. Once you have identified that they will create value for your business, you will need to make sure that you collected business card and put it into a pocket that you can retrieve later. One of the most important things that you can do while at these networking events is to be sincere. Take an interest in them and Focus on what they are good at. Dale Carnegie talks about how everybody’s favorite topic is themselves. If you can get him or her talking about themselves, they will love you forever. Make sure that you are sincere throughout the process so that you do not come across as a fake, self-serving networker. Do not focus on selling your product and service right off of the bat. The hard sell will not work for you in these types of scenarios. Rather, you can examine the soft sell in the book that is referenced in this episode. If you want to learn more about sales and networking, make sure that you check out the other episodes in this series. Do not dominate the conversation, one of the most frequent mistakes that are made at networking events is that people will try to dominate the conversation and educate everybody about everything of their business. The majority of your time should be spent listening.
