The best part about today’s post is that it works year-round.
So how can you guarantee that someone will be grateful to exchange business cards and contact information, no matter the event?
Listen and ask questions to uncover a need. Most people will reveal a need if you give them long enough to talk. You can accelerate the process if you ask targeted questions.
At a business networking event? Ask about the person’s biggest challenge this year. The odds are good that a need will emerge.
At a social event? Ask about health, their home or kids. Needs show up very quickly in these conversations.
Note that these conversational topics are completely appropriate for the occasion, so you are still honoring the event.
Now that you have uncovered a need, mentally thumb through your contacts to see if anyone can answer the need. If you can think of someone, you are golden. Mention that you think you know someone who can help, and would they like the contact info. The answer is likely to be yes. Say you’d be happy to arrange an introduction or send them the name and contact info. Presto! You just set up a perfect reason to exchange cards or phone numbers and email addresses.
See how easy that was? No pressure. You honored the event, and you found a referral for someone. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Tags: Business cards, Networking, Networking Events, Relationship building
Perfect! The only other thing I can add to this is if in the course of the conversation, you all find you have a common interest to be genuine and use that as a follow up to continue the relationship.
I have a friend whose sailboat is next to mine. We got to know each other’s business by sailing each other’s boats. I hope to send some business his way sometime and I would be happy if he indicated an interest in my SEO training or consulting, because he does some SEO himself.