How to meet the right people
This week let’s talk about how to meet the right people.
This question has surfaced in a few different ways, such as “how to identify what events to attend”, “how to meet my target”, “knowing whom to speak with”, etc.
Well, as I mention in the “5 Simple Ways to Network Successfully“, the first order of business to clarify for yourself what your goal is.
What are you looking for?
For instance, do you want to meet people in Human Resources, or do you want to meet engineers? Do you want to meet executives from large companies or do you want to meet small business owners? Or perhaps you want to meet people within a particular industry, regardless of job position?
Although there may be events where you might find all of these kinds of people, typically each group has its own professional association and related conferences, trade shows or business mixers.
So if you’re clear about *whom* you want to meet, you can then look for directory listings of professional associations and find out about their meetings and events.
Then, you can focus your networking efforts and attend only those events where you’d have a direct opportunity to meet the kinds of people you want to.
Chances are, however, that depending on what’s going on in your business or company, the people you want to meet will vary.
For instance, sometimes you may be looking for prospective clients or customers, while other times you may want to meet people with whom you can establish a business alliance or strategic partnership.
And the profile of your ideal customer will probably be different from that of your ideal business alliance partner.
So you may want to take a step back first, and identify all the different kinds of people you want to network with in general, given your overall business goals and needs.
Once you have this information, you can select your organizations and events, and begin to network strategically, making the most of your time and energy.
In my “3 Secrets for Effective Networking” program, I go into more detail about how you can do this kind of assessment, and also provide a worksheet to help you with this process.
Additional information on this is also available in “Business By Referral“, a book by the founder and CEO of BNI.
Good luck!
– Sri
