One of the best ways to position yourself as an expert, get new clients and grow your business is to network. You need to learn how to make strong connections with people.
When you network, you put yourself in the midst of people who are your potential clients, those who are in the same niche as you and those you can partner with. With this in mind, you need to make good use of the opportunity you have to network with people. Because of the importance networking has to freelancers and small business owners, I’ve put together a few tips to make each networking experience profitable.
1. Set a clear goal or purpose for networking
Although networking can be fun and quite informative, you should not forget the real reason why you’re doing it. For this reason you need to have a clearly defined goal you want to achieve at the end of the networking event or meetup. This will keep you focused and encourage you to be strategic about what you talk about and how you conduct yourself to achieve that goal. But remember to have fun in the process. It’s not necessary to be so formal while networking.
2. Master your elevator pitch
I first heard about the elevator pitch on a Pro Blogger podcast. I have mastered it since then and use it every day to sign up new clients. When you walk up to people or when people approach you, it is likely that they’ll ask you what you do for a living or what business you’re into. Make sure that you know you have your elevator pitch ready. An elevator pitch is a short description of what business you’re into, what you do, who your clients are and what you do for them.
Take time to plan and rehearse your elevator pitch before networking. You have 60 seconds to make a good impression, so make it count.
3. Keep the conversation going with open-ended questions
Nobody likes an awkward silence, especially when you try to start a conversation with someone. Conversations that are engaging and memorable create a deep connection with the person you’re talking to.
Develop the skill of asking open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are questions that encourage people to answer with sentences. They encourage a conversation unlike close-ended questions which encourage a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. When you ask open-ended questions you prompt the person to speak more and that keeps the conversation going, which is great for you.
4. Always carry your business card
When you meet someone who is a potential client or someone you want to connect with in the future, it’s a good practice to share your business card with them. Your business card contains all of your contact details written in one place. It makes you look professional and it saves you the time you would have spent to bring out your phone, share your phone number and store the other person’s number in your phone. I never leave my house without some business cards.
5. Be yourself
When you’re surrounded by so many accomplished people, there’s a natural urge for you to try to fit in so you won’t feel left out. However, it’s so much easier to just be yourself. Do not forget your true self all in the name of trying to impress a couple of people. Be real. Stay authentic, but polite. Those who will be your clients or friends will love and appreciate you for who you are.
How do you network? Do you have any tips to share? Sound off in the comment section please.
Thanks for reading.
I need to seriously think about my pitching! I have to work on that one for sure, been putting it off for a while now but it’s time I face it and make it good 🙂
Yea it is worth doing.
I love hearing other people’s elevator pitch. Definitely important to get it right.
Yea it is.
This is a useful list of tips. I’ll forward it to my boyfriend, who is in the process of becoming self-employed.
Ah great. Thank you Sarah.
I’m self-employed myself and honestly, I’ve never even thought about promoting myself in 60 seconds. Now thinking about it, I must have missed so many opportunities by not doing so!
The elevator pitch does help.
Thanks for sharing. These are reallu helpful and can be applied even if your not self employed!
Thanks for reading Nikki.
These are great tips! I don’t really need to do very much networking at the moment because I have a lot of work but I’ll probably need to in the future. I’ll keep these tips in mind!
Thank you.
This is a really helpful post Stella! I’ve not really networked very much with my blog so I’m definitely taking plenty of notes from here!
Musings & More
Glad you like it Emily.
These are all really great tips, I tried to go self employed (as a MUA) a while ago but unfortunately it didn’t work out…
Thanks Alyssia. It can be hard at first. I almost gave up at first too.
Thanks for all these helpful tips. I don’t have an elevator pitch really, although I should work on one.
Thank you for reading.
Great tips that can apply to many more situations than just this one – we use business cards all the time in our research roles 🙂
Thanks Elanor.
Having goals is very important. I sometimes forget to set up goals when I am networking and these means that I might have a nice chat, but it’s not as good as it should be.
Yea having goals does help.
These are some great tips – I have to admit I’m not very good at networking at all! x
Thanks Sarah x
Things like this are why I’d never be able to go full time on my own business!
Nicola // pink-confetti.co.uk
I know..It can be hard.
This is a great post, the advise is really sound especially the one about being your self, its so important.
Thanks Nayna.
This is great. Would love to feature it as a guest post on my blog. Living the corporate life I can imagine there’s a lot of my readers who need some support.
Thank you. Yes you can. Do let me know if you do.
I do agree with you, carry your business card as you never know who you will meet and what opportunities you can miss if you don’t.
Yea you never know.
So many good tips and some of it is well worthy of serving as a reminder.
Yea I agree.
Be yourself is always the best advise to give anyone. Why fake it? A lot of people see through “fakeness”
Great tips.
X
Fab tip Moji x
These are amazing tips. So glad to know what elevator speech is. And the tip to Keep the conversation going with open-ended questions is indeed essential.
Glad you like them Jessica.
I really need to get some more up to date business cards printed actually x
Cool x
I’m not self employed so network doesn’t really come into my routine. However it’s still useful to know for blog events etc!
Yea it is Leanne.
I need to be braver when it comes to networking! I haven’t even made business cards!
Ah you should Charlotte.
So many great tips. I need to keep these in mind X
Ah cool x
Thanks for sharing
I need this for my business 🙂
Hello from Indonesia
Oh glad you like it.
Damn I need to get going with my “elevator pitch”! I’m always stumped when people ask about my blog..
Lol..I can imagine. It gets easier once you master it.
Be Yourself is my favorite. Its much easier to connect with people.
Yes it is.
Short and to the point, I love it! Thank you for posting this, I really think I’m going to take this and learn from it. Definitely getting a follow from me, keep the good work coming! 🙂
Thanks Alex.