Networking for Business - Part 2

What's Your Story?

Last time I suggested that you should change your approach to networking and instead of going along to sell your products or your services you should go along to share your story. 

Is Your Story Clear?

And in order to share your story you need to know what your story is. So what is your story? Have you got your story clear? Most networking events give you between 40 seconds and 1 minute to stand up and tell people about you and your business. But in the past have you got your story clear? Was there something you meant to say but forget in the nervousness of it all! Of course some of us get nervous during the 40seconds / 1 minute round. It’s nerve racking standing up in front of other people.

Practice Your Story

Which is why you need to make sure you have your story completely clear and you must practice it prior to the meeting. If you practice it then when it comes to your turn, you can absolutely nail it, so that you let people know exactly what you do, so that they understand what it is you do what; what special offer you’re running; what event you’ve got coming up, when and where and what sort of referrals you’re looking for.

Make it Memorable

So make sure you spend some time getting your story right and try to make it memorable and exciting so that people want to know more about it. There's a guy called Jay Blake from Ichthus Video who does a brilliant 40 seconds. He holds up a tiny funnel and explains that this is what most small businesses are using as their sales funnel and then produces a huge blue funnel and asks if you want to know how to get a huge sales funnel full of leads have a chat with him. Jay runs a video business and helps companies film and add video content to their websites to help them generate a huge improvement in interest and therefore leads. The fact I'm writing about Jay here shows that it was memorable!

If people understand what it is that you do and what sort of customers you’re looking for, then if they know people who need the services or products which you sell, they will think of you rather than anyone else. And of course as you get to know each other more business starts to happen because people buy people.

My next blog post is all about how people have to get to know each other before the magic of business can happen.

Related posts:
In case you missed any of the other articles in the series just click the relevant link below:

Networking for Busines - Introduction
Networking for Busines - Part 1
Networking for Busines - Part 2
Networking for Busines - Part 3
Networking for Busines - Part 4
Networking for Busines - Part 5
Networking for Busines - Part 6
Networking for Busines - Part 7