Advice/Tips
CHICAGO – You’re a busy person. The people who walk by you each day are most likely saying the same thing about themselves. Do you think you don’t have time to network? Think again. Can you afford not to?
Everyone and everything is demanding our time and there is little to no downtime these days. As a result, there is often little to no time to build new relationships. Those same people you pass by each day are often in the same position. How are the “lucky people” becoming so successful at growing their businesses?
Once in a while, they have created the best thing since sliced bread. For most of us, that is not the case and we are in tough competition to win business. By not widening your spheres of influence for new contacts and relationships, you might be severely reducing your chances for your advancement, sales, ventures, partnerships, sales pipeline and success.
It has been estimated that the average person knows 250 people who each know another 250 people. That’s a heck of a pipeline and a way to identify new spheres of influence to build contacts and relationships. Events such as speed networking give you an excellent opportunity to efficiently and effectively build your pipeline of connections and target your desired industries.
While networking online has its advantages, nothing can replace a face-to-face meeting with a handshake. Furthermore, speed networking puts you in a position to quickly learn about an individual and allows you to make an initial assessment of whether or not you would like to pursue a relationship.
Finally, within 60 or 90 minutes of speed networking, you will have the opportunity to meet 10 to 15 business professionals. If you do your math right, you will realize that you could build a substantial pipeline of connections off one event and eventually become one of those “lucky people”.
Michael Slater is president of SpeedNetworking.com.
