Business Networking Tips and Hints

Business Networking Tool: How to have the best 30 second self introduction ever heard!
Does every elevator speech contain a referral?

Self introductions will get you referrals at every business networking event you attend, after you read this article. EVERY TIME, WITHOUT EXCEPTION! A big claim? Yep. Here’s how it’s done.

To make this work, you will need 3 things:

   1. Paper
   2. An eagerness to help others
   3. A way to follow-up with people

All you have to do is: Listen to every introduction with an intention to help the person.

Here’s a side note about referrals. Not every referral will be a direct customer. Referrals can also include:

• Other networking and leads organizations
• Resources that may be helpful to them
• Books that may help them (This is my personal favorite!)
• Partners that are in complementary businesses that will refer them
• Direct Business
• Your advice & expertise
• Be creative and let you imagination run wild

You see, 95% of the people attending a business networking event are thinking about what to say in their 30 second self introduction. In fact, most people are so deathly afraid of public speaking that they’re having minor anxiety attacks waiting for their turn. Regardless of how “good or bad” the elevator pitch, you’ll get an idea of what they do in their business and will get an intuitive sense of how to help them grow their business.

For every person that attends the event, take a note. Write down their contact info and what ever comes to your mind during their 30 second self introduction that will help them and their business. After the meeting, mixer or business networking event contact the person and share the referral. Take a few minutes to connect and get to know the person. Where appropriate, add them to your database and newsletter list.

Using this method, for every 20 people you contact you should receive anywhere from one to three direct referrals from every business networking event you attend. These leads will typically show up within 45 to 60 days. Try it and see what happens. By helping others, you will feel better and be more energized.

Why only Business and Business Networking Events?

NetworkingEventFinders only publishes business and business networking events

Here’s the reason why:

• Business and Networking is our passion   
• We are very talented Networkers and Business owners   
• We’re tired of searching through festivals, concerts and single’s events to find business networking events    
• We’re older and our “partying days” are mostly over   
• We’re don’t want to attend business networking events that are really MLM recruiting events, buiness seminars and opportunity meetings.   
• We’re too easily distracted and searching for business networking events led us to some cool websites, but wasted tons of our time   
• We’re tired of typing in our email address all the time to sign in to get business networking event information   
• We got tired of “self interest” sites where publishers mainly promoted their own events, programs and seminars

So about 18 months ago, Mindy Selinger & Terry Hall set out to design and build a global business networking websites where it’s FREE to find and promote local networking events. Networking Event Finders was born as a beta site in October 2008 with our full launch in March 2009.

Like any business, we’ve learned a heck of a lot about what works and doesn’t work for an on-line business. Mostly we’ve learned that Networking Event Finders is needed more than ever. We’re filling the need for an independent publisher for business and business networking events. We’ve proven our idea. We’ve proven our ability to design, maintain and promote a Network of 60+ Business Networking Sites. We’ve proven that 800+ people a day are looking for what we publish. Not too bad in just over a year. If 2010 is anything like 2009, our popularity is positioned to explode! We could use your help.

We’re offering a Win/Win opportunity, that’s the best part. We have three way you can help:

   1. Let your networks know that we’re here and invite them to add their networking events to our calendars.
   2. Consider being a Local Editor for your networking guide.
   3. Help us find advertisers.

By helping in any of these areas, you’ll help us improve our publication so that we offer more business networking event and we’ll have a better variety of events and the speed of our development will snowball. We’ll all win with greater exposure to a bigger audience and more opportunities to grow and increase our businesses.

Maryland, Moms Inc. & Business Networking

Talk about necessity being the ‘mother’ of invention… Moms Inc.org was started three years ago by Nancy Daniel for moms who have a home-based business or want to start one. 

During this past summer I received several inquiries looking for kid friendly business networking groups for work at home moms in Denver so I put out a national query. I didn’t get very many responses. Now I’ve got one!  I’m hoping that the publicity this local group receives from being in our national newsletter will help shed light on more small groups like this. We want people to learn about what’s available in a networking group and of course list their events on the calendar.

There are unique obstacles facing stay at home moms that run home based businesses. They are striving to succeed in two unrelated and frequently conflicting endeavors, and they crave a place where they can go for support and guidance. Groups like Moms, Inc are tailored toward answering a particular need that more and more women are experiencing.  Moms, Inc is bringing together mothers with at-home businesses and connecting them into the rich resources and knowledge base of other women who are making the same lifestyle choice. Moms, Inc. chapters have one informal meeting a month. Meetings are free and annual dues a kept at a minimum. The group is mostly mothers of young children, so kids are always welcome. From a mere handful of members to three chapters in Maryland in three short years, with additional chapters being planned in other states, Moms, Inc. has blossomed. Moms, Inc. is for networking, support & friendship. Members take their business seriously but still realize that their families are also a priority. If you know of any other such small, grass-roots group please leave a comment and tell us about them!

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