James Meyers of Celestial Cheesecakes requested this one. Happy to oblige!

We’re winding up 2011, and many people will be working a light schedule the rest of this week and next. But networking doesn’t need to end. You’ll have some excellent opportunities, if you recognize them and take advantage of them.

As I indicated in an earlier post, Networking at a Funeral, there’s no place you can’t network. Holiday parties and family gatherings are no exception. Honor the occasion, leave business cards in your pocket until requested and listen for needs. Do those three things, and you can do some good networking at any event. Family and friends should be willing to help you out, so use them as sounding boards for ideas. Or just as a way to share the awesome things you did this year. They’ll be happy to be involved, and who knows? They might even have contacts for you in the New Year.

What about next week? Definitely, you should take some time off and relax, but it can also be a good time to catch up on some coffee meetings. Some people are easier to tie…err…track down at the end of the year. Having a hard time getting on the calendar of a busy, key contact? See if he or she is available next week.

Remember that networking is something that can occur whenever two or more people are in the same room. Don’t ignore opportunities just because it’s the holiday season.

Anyone have good holiday networking stories to share?

FYI. I am taking my own advice. I do have a few coffee meetings I’m setting up for next week, but mostly I’m taking the time off. This is my last original post of the year. There will still be blog posts, but they’ll be reposts of some popular entries from the archives. Enjoy!

Tags: Networking, Relationship building

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 at 9:10 am and is filed under Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.