For a long time I tried to do this. I worked on creating an elevator pitch for networking events, but I found that the elevator pitch monologue just didn't feel right. After all, it was supposed to be a conversation.
Then, I found the article Kill the Elevator Speech about abandoning the idea of having an elevator pitch. What it said made sense -- convey the same information that's in an elevator speech, but do it step-by-step in a conversation!
I'm not saying that an elevator speech isn't helpful.
Just writing an elevator pitch is helpful to clarify what your company offers. But, it turns out that an elevator speech is useful only for events where delivering a short pitch is the format for the meeting. For example, the pitch fest meetings where entrepreneurs pitch potential investors on investing in their company in less than a minute is an interesting and entertaining format, but it seldom results in a worthwhile new connection.
Elevator speeches are also valuable at "speed networking" events where the objective is to tell your pitch quickly, or listen to the other person's pitch, so you can make the most of the few minutes you have -- before moving on to the next person's pitch.
However, in the casual, conversational setting of a networking mixer, it's better to use a slightly different technique.
Here is a simple, one sentence format for introducing your story in a way that's easy for the other person to remember:
[Company] provides [product or service solution] that helps [type of customer] [benefit].
Here are some examples to show how this template can be used:
Most of these companies provide more than one product or service. But, people at busy networking events can only remember one thing that your company provides.
Start conversations with your one sentence introduction, and be ready to answer questions about your company as they come up in the conversation.
So, set the elevator speech aside for when an event calls for you to deliver a short pitch. Then, come up with a short way to quickly describe the one thing you want people at networking events to remember that you can provide.
For some people, face-to-face networking at meetings for professional groups and association chapters works well to meet new people.
For others, online networking using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail discussion lists works well to increase the number of connections, friends, and followers.
I have used both methods for a long time, and they work well for meeting new people. But both fall short when it comes to growing a relationship with someone you've met. That takes a different type of networking. It takes engaging in activities together over time.
Tony Karrer has cone up with a technique called "Visible Networking" that's likely to overcome some of these problems. With Visible Networking a group of people have their networking conversations online in public:
What do I mean by visible networking, well it's simply the idea that instead of having a 30 minute phone conversation, why not have that conversation out in public view. Twitter is pretty much that already. But I'm thinking about deeper conversations than I have on twitter. So, clearly it would make sense to do this in my blogs. And I'm thinking about having these conversations both with people I already know and people that I've just met or are just getting to know.
I told Tony:
Your idea of "Visible Networking" can help people take the "glad to meet you" networking to the next level -- "glad to know you" relationships. Then, face-to-face meetings and activities become much more valuable. I see Visible Networking as a series of conversations around blog posts, and encouraging a group of people to actively participate. It's like a dinner discussion where a topic is discussed, then the group moves to the next topic.
Yes, blogs has been touted as a place to have conversations, but Tony is doing Visible Networking by starting the conversation in a blog post, then continuing the conversation in the comments. And, since he's using a public blog anyone can join the conversation.
This technique can work well for any group, organization, or association chapter where many members don't know each other. Visible Networking can help give visibility to each member, and encourage other members to participate in the conversations.
]]>Shira Levine wrote a good reminder on six ways to get value from joining an association: A Good Business Move: Joining Associations
Her main theme is that it takes more than just paying an association's membership dues in order to get the most value from the membership -- it takes an investment of time.
With each interaction they have a better understanding of who you are, what you believe -- and how you will act in certain situations.
These changes are more frequent and pronounced when you are out networking at events because those relationships are new. So, it's important to make sure the way people perceive you helps you achieve your goals, and not detracts from it.
Ever since Tom Peters wrote the article "The Brand Called You" writers, consultants, and coaches have been helping people understand the concept of "personal branding."
Unfortunately, most of what has been written about personal branding has been on how to project a "brand image" -- not on how to decide what that image should be.
Heather Schlegel, a marketing consultant and event producer, has combined both personal branding strategy and tactics into a single mind map diagram. Her Personal Branding and Audience Development Worksheet shows how to decide what your personal brand should be -- and how to implement your personal brand strategy.
Take a look at her diagram to see how to evaluate and improve your personal brand image.
And what do you find in a high-tech community -- in addition to technology? Events. Lots of Events.
It's been difficult to keep up on the technology events in Southern California. Several Web sites have calendars of events in SoCal communities. However, not every event organizer lists their gathering on those sites
The Technology Council of Southern California and TechEmpower have created Southern California Tech Central, a new Web site that makes it much easier to keep up with the whole technology sector in Southern California.
Here's a page with posts about SoCal events http://cc.tcosc.org/event/.
Check out the Southern California Tech Central -- and keep up with the tech events Southern California.
Laurie Percival mentioned that while at the SXSW conference she used Contxts, a new SMS-based service that shares business card information with someone by just sending their mobile phone number to an SMS "short code."
There are many times when you don't have business cards to give to a new acquaintance. You might be at a conference and run out. Or, you might be at such a casual location that your business cards aren't handy. Both seemed to occur a lot at SXSW!
There are two ways to use Contxts. One way is to send your contact's mobile phone number to Contxts and they will send your business card information to your contact's mobile phone. Or, your contact can text your user ID to Contxts at 50500 and retrieve your business card data via SMS.
One of the extra benefits of Contxts is that you can list all of your favorite social media addresses in your profile, which you couldn't include on a paper business card.
Contxts won't replace paper business cards, but as they add features it should reduce the keying of new contacts into a contact manager.
I'm sure Contxts will be used a lot at our next LINC networking event.
For the business networking events I help organize we found that a significant number of the "Yes" RSVPs don't attend. Fortunately, our events are free, which means we don't have a financial obligation to meet.
However, most organizations have significant costs to host their events. So, many organizations are moving to online event registration to:
This gives attendees a greater sense of quality for both the event and the organization. And, the online event registration system helps manage revenue to ensure that the event will be beneficial to the organization, too.
All investors contributed contacts, industry knowledge or competitive intelligence
The takeaway for entrepreneurs is that it's important to network with potential investors who bring more to the table than money. Investors who understand your industry can make introductions to prospective customers and potential business partners are worth a great deal.
The same holds true for everyone else, too. Strive to develop contacts with people who understand your industry and have connections who might be interested in what you offer.
If you're looking for a job, look for contacts who know managers who have made hiring decisions and are willing to make introductions for you.
If you're in sales, look for contacts who know purchasers of your type of products and are willing to make referrals.
If you're an investor, actively network with people who associate with entrepreneurs in the industry where you invest.
It takes time to research "who knows who," but it increases the value of your networking efforts tremendously.
Check out Richard's detailed list of networking tips, then include ones that are right for you in your networking techniques.
]]>Go To Events - Another easy one. Go to tweetups, conferences, podcamps, etc. You’ll meet people, you’ll get to talk about your startup, and you’ll get the chance to hone your message each time you meet someone new.
With all the ways we network online, much of it deals with arranging face-to-face networking.
]]>Keep a free hand - Events aren’t about the food & drink. If you have food in one hand and a drink in the other, you won’t be able to shake hands with new people.
Sloane is the type of networker who returns from a conference with a 6" stack of business cards, so listen to the whole interview for more of Sloane's networking tips.
Events are no longer simply a conference, tradeshow, meeting or party. They are an investment with return expectations.
There are many ways to determine the return on investment, but eventually the cost of attending business meetings and events needs to translate into a financial benefit to the organizations that paid for their employees to attend.
One challenging part of estimating the ROI of sending people to big events is the time delay between expenditure and return. It can take months or years for new contacts to become customers. And, it's hard to determine the benefit what was learned from the speakers.
One approach is to have employees write a "trip report" that details the contacts they saw and the things they learned. Over time, these trip reports can be compared to the benefits from building relationships with those contacts and implementing what was learned.
In September we'll be expanding LINC with small breakfast and lunch networking meetings for business development people at local technology companies. LINC BizDev meetings are designed to help bizdev people tell their company's story to their peers so everyone can work together in growing our community.
If your bizdev person is looking for more business networking opportunities, have them request an invitation to LINC BizDev meetings.
]]>One technique is to use search engine optimization (SEO) to attract searchers to your event description page. The challenge that most organizations face is their Web site can't get ranked high enough in search engines to matter.
There are two main components to successful SEO: page content and incoming links. It's relatively easy to optimize the content of an event page, but it's very hard to get enough links to the organization's Web site to rank high in the search engines.
A solution is to add your event to the SureToMeet event calendar because our whole site is search engine optimized. For example, SureToMeet automatically creates up to five links to your event that are fed to search engines within hours. In several recent tests every event we tested showed up on the first page of search engines, while the organization's own site ranked much further down.
For organizations that use SureToMeet's online event registration this SEO promotion is done automatically for public events. For other organizations that that use their own online event registration process, they can add their events to the SureToMeet event calendar for free and have the same SEO advantage in the search engines.
Like our slogan says, we want to help organizations bring people together face-to-face at events, seminars, and meetings.
]]>At a networking event this week hosted by Experian Interactive Media, Stephen Semprevivo, President, spoke briefly about networking, and encouraged everyone to use storytelling as one of their networking techniques.
Everyone swaps stories at networking events, but I'm not sure everyone uses storytelling effectively to accomplish their networking goals.
There are many ways to use storytelling in your networking, such as:
Here are a few resources on storytelling techniques in business:
So...what's your story?