April Meeting Recap
By Betsy Rhame-Minor
Debbie Rodkin of ReFocus on Careers was our guest speaker and offered ideas for building business through effective networking tactics. Here are some of the highlights:
- Identify key decision makers in an organization you’re interested in. Network with those people. Talk to them about industry trends. Find out who their clients are.
- Create alliances with colleagues. Partner up with them on projects. After a successful project together, ask them to write you a letter of reference.
- With your existing clients, propose follow-up projects, and ask for reference letters and referrals. Create a need for them to keep using you.
- With your vendors, exchange referrals and discuss current industry trends.
- If someone agrees to write a letter of recommendation for you, it’s OK for you to offer suggestions on what they should include, or even write the letter yourself and send it to them to review and sign.
- Create an e-newsletter for your clients. Make it interesting, and you’ll be seen as an expert in your field.
- Send clients, colleagues and vendors links to articles that they’ll be interested in. Tell them you thought about them and why.
- Create a business plan that can tell people how they can help you. List industries, areas of interest and target companies. Be specific!
- When attending networking meetings, mentally prepare for what you want to get out of the meeting. Arrive early. Know who you want to meet and talk to.
- Professional name badges are very important. Put your badge on the upper right part of your body below your shoulder. Put your first name larger than your last name, along with your job title and company name.
- When making small talk in a networking environment, don’t talk about traffic and weather! Ask targeted questions that will get others talking about their professional lives.
- When approaching groups in a room, look for groups of three or four people who have an opening in their circle. When there is a pause in conversation, they will likely ask you to introduce yourself and pull you into the conversation.
- Make your introductions conversational.
- Don’t exchange business cards with someone unless you’ve established a rapport with them. Keep your business cards in your right pocket, and fill your left pocket with cards you receive from others.
- Follow up with those you meet at networking events. Call them or email them (include an appropriate subject line). Remind people if they’ve offered to introduce you to a professional contact of theirs. Include information about you and full contact information so they can easily pass your information on to someone else. Then, offer to help them.
- Be in the know about events and other things in your area that will help others. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you.
To learn more about Debbie Rodkin and ReFocus on Careers, and see a schedule of events, visit www.refocusoncareers.com.