If you love going to lots of events to network, make yourself known and land clients, make sure you plan every step carefully.
Networking is a professional sport I have been practising since 2000 or earlier, when I started joining professional associations, and I have made, or seen others make, a great many mistakes.
A few days ago I was interviewed by the newspaper Valenciaplaza and I told them about some of them, and how to get off on the right foot and make the most of events: Valenciaplaza.com
So pay attention, use plenty of common sense and don’t let over-eagerness lead you to disaster.
The classic mistakes:
1. Wanting to go to every event under the sun without any prior goal.
2. Handing out and collecting business cards left, right and centre without taking notes, without sorting them afterwards and without proper follow-up.
3. Carrying shabby business cards: photocopied, on ordinary paper, cut out by hand…
4. Neglecting your personal hygiene or wearing dirty, torn or scruffy clothes (broken or loose buttons, dirty shoes, stained ties…)
5. Arriving late to an event and barging in in the middle of the meeting, having lost the thread.
6. Also leaving in the middle of a meeting: if you go, clear your diary just for that meeting.
7. Talking too much, without listening to others, in a loud voice, interrupting…
8. Monopolising one or more conversations without encouraging the others to take part.
9. Not having a well-rehearsed elevator pitch, your powerful and original introduction.
10. Not personally greeting the organisers or hosts and thanking them for the invitation.
11. Staying in an isolated corner without talking to anyone, or only to someone you came with.
12. Going to an event but spending it talking on the phone or glued to your smartphone.
13. Ignoring some people, acting arrogantly, not being humble.
14. Neglecting the social rules of behaviour in public, and personal hygiene.
15. Going for the canapés as if you hadn’t eaten for two days.
16. Having one drink too many and starting to slur your words.
17. Offering someone a lift in your car (more than 10 years old, dirty, smelling of tobacco, covered in dents, and you driving abruptly or recklessly). Better to take a taxi.
Have you made any of the mistakes on the list? Well, there’s still time to correct them for next time.
Happy networking
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