I was recently at a networking event and I noticed that there are really good networkers, and not so good networkers.<\/p>\n
Which group do you think you are in?<\/p>\n
When I meet people for the first time I go on a fact-finding mission. I ask them questions to learn more about them, their business, their attitudes, their everything!<\/p>\n
Do you?<\/p>\n
If you don’t engage people in conversation by asking them questions about themselves, that is a networking mistake that you need to fix. Like right now. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Connecting with people online or in person takes time – your valuable time – so you want to make it count.<\/p>\n
If you meet people and talk only about yourself, you will not gather enough information about them to do proper follow up.<\/p>\n
If you don’t ask them pointed questions about how they run their business, you won’t be able to figure out quickly if you can help them.<\/p>\n
If you don’t engage them in a conversation that is more than 5 minutes long, you won’t be memorable.<\/p>\n
And as a result, you could actually be wasting your very valuable networking time.<\/p>\n
You can gather information, do better follow up, see if you can help them, and be memorable (and more!) simply by asking questions.<\/p>\n
I have been with other VAs in networking situations, and I see it happen all the time – people ask what they do, and they say they are a VA. And that’s all.<\/p>\n
It’s a perfect opportunity to use your marketing message to tell people what you do ‘I am a VA. I help business coaches with their online marketing so they can get more clients. What do you do?’ works so much better than ‘I’m a VA.’ Don’t you think?<\/p>\n
It invites conversation (even if they just want to ask you what a VA is).<\/p>\n
And if that is their question – what is a VA?<\/p>\n
Then you answer, ‘I provide online marketing services for my clients from my own home office. What do you do?’<\/p>\n
It opens the door for them to answer what they do. And when they do, you launch your questions. If they say they are a business coach, that’s a bonus, but even if they don’t you work with it.<\/p>\n
‘I own a pet store.’<\/p>\n
‘Oh that’s great. Where do you do your most of your marketing?’<\/p>\n
You get the picture. Asking questions is the best strategy you can have when networking.<\/p>\n
It’s an easy mistake to make if you get nervous or if you try to see a lot of people at any event, but luckily it’s also really easy to fix!<\/p>\n
Try it yourself and let me know how much better you feel after your next event!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"