BRX Pro Tip: 2 Tips to Prepare for Your Next Networking Event
Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, what are some ideas for preparing for a networking event that you’re going to attend?
Lee Kantor: Yeah. I think people don’t put enough time in the preparation part of networking. They know “Oh. I got to do networking,” and they just kind of on autopilot go to these events. But I think if you spend a few minutes preparing for your event, you’re going to get a much better ROI.
Lee Kantor: One of the first things you should do for any networking event is research who’s coming. I mean, I would be identifying a handful of people that you want to meet in advance and set a goal to meet X number of attendees by the end of the event. So, if you know who’s there, you know where to spend your time, and you know what area you should be looking in order to get the most out of that event.
Lee Kantor: And secondly, this is something that I think introverts would really benefit from is practice some elements of networking ahead of time so you’re ready for the event. And some of the things to practice are how you’re going to answer the question “What do you do?” I would also practice a way to ask what the person does in an elegant way that doesn’t sound too salesy. And most importantly for any introvert, you should practice an elegant way to end the conversation to move on to the next person.
Lee Kantor: If you do these two things, kind of doing your research of who’s attending and practicing some elements of networking, then you’ll find your next networking event doesn’t have to feel stressful or icky.
