Learn How To Network…..

My business colleagues tell me that networking is the fastest growing and most effective way for me to “keep my finger on the business pulse” and gain more and new profitable clients. Do you consider yourself to be one of the “networking challenged” who doesn’t like networking and isn’t very good at it. We recommend going aong to face to face networking before using social networking sites as many of the same principles apply. What can you do to improve your skills?

The art and science of nurturing your networking is to learn and practice five key skills:

Step One: First, see clearly what you want to achieve. Ask yourself what you want. For example: ‘ To meet business people who may be potential clients and develop my business.’ Then ask yourself what businesses you would like to work with. Once you have done this go along as a guest to several networking groups to find the type of business people you wish to meet. Choose the networking group or groups you will attend and make a commitment to your self to attend regularly.

Step Two: Learn the process of networking. Be prepared to be proactive and approach people and develop an ongoing relationship based on trust. As a starting point, prepare a few “open” questions to begin a conversation, such as “what business are you in?” Listen carefully to the response and gather information on what you can do for their business. When you ask the person that you are speaking to questions first that will really appreciate that you are interested in them.

Step Three: Prepare your ‘elevator pitch’, being clear on what you do and what are the benefits for your potential clients. We use a simple format:

Hello I’m….. Graham from Whole Being
We help….. Graduates who are unemployed to make the transition from education into employment or setting up their own business or volunteering or work placement or further education.
What we do is….. Workshops,Coaching and Mentoring and E-courses
So that…… Graduates get to use their degrees more fully and find the right thing for them
Which means….. They can add value and make a difference and contribute their unique skills to make themselves and the economy grow and prosper.

Step Four: Develop your memory so that the subsequent time that you meet someone you know their name and something that is important to them. Remember networking is a skill and, like any skill, develops with practice.

Step Five: Notice when you start to achieve what you set out to achieve. How much more business have you gained since you began networking seriously and began having more fun.

Enjoy.

Tags: Business Coaching, Business NLP Brighton, NLP Business Practitioner, NLP Training, Practitioner

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 9:48 am by NLP with Whole Being and is filed under NLP in Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.