Professional Business Networking Basics in 4 Easy Steps

As Work at Home Women there are multiple of priorities competing for our time and energy. And even if you are an extrovert like me, thinking about professional business networking can cause you to feel a little stressed out before you even begin.

Building, growing and nurturing relationships takes effort and constancy. Not to mention time out of an already busy day.

If you haven’t focused on business relationship building lately or you just started a side hustle you might be trying to figure out how you would even start networking.

The best place to start is by getting back to the basics.

The four professional business networking basics steps below simplify the process of growing your network and business relationships. And as a bonus these steps make the process more enjoyable and effective.

If you are struggling to gain visibility for your business the simplest solution is to grow and nurture your network of people who know like and trust you.

And the great thing about these four steps is they won’t make you feel salesy or icky!

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Professional Business Networking Basics

1. Before you can effectively grow your network you need to identify your GOAL for EACH relationship or event.

This is THE KEY STEP for simplifying networking and easing the knot in your stomach.

Before you do any business relationship nurturing or networking identify what your goal is for each relationship.

It is so much easier to start a conversation and grow a business relationship when you know ahead of time what you are seeking from the relationship.

A sample of possible networking goals includes:

• Updating your mentor(s) on what you are currently working on

• Asking someone for advice with a particular business hurdle

• Gaining insight on new industry trends or upcoming industry challenges

• Learning about upcoming Entrepreneur or industry events

• Growing relationships with other Work from Home Women

• Meeting other business owners

• Practicing introducing yourself and your business

• Generating a list of new leads

• Nurturing an existing lead

• Closing a sale

The list is endless!

The KEY, again, is to have a goal for the relationship or your attendance at each networking event. The more specific the goal the better.

If it’s been a while since you have done “in real life” networking – or you have a new business – I would recommend starting with the goal of practicing introducing yourself and your company or updating your mentor(s) on what you are currently working on.

Both of these goals have forgiving audiences.

2. Identify Where Your People Gather for Business Opportunities

After reviewing the goals above, for Step 2 let’s say you have decided your goal is to make new business relationships.

You are ready to attend a networking event and start practicing introducing yourself and your business.

Where do you start?

You start by getting even more focused on your goal and then researching where your ideal business relationship gather.

Do you want to meet people in your industry or people who would be interested in your business services?

Neither answer is wrong! Just decide and then ask yourself where your ideal business relationship gather and find that type of event.

You might be thinking that sounds well and good but you live in an area that has limited opportunities to meet your ideal business relationship.

Don’t discount your local Chamber even if it is small. And since your goal is to practice meeting people then you’ve hit the jackpot. People gather at Chamber events for just that purpose.

Okay, I see you still rolling your eyes and considering closing this post because I recommended a local Chamber event. And yes, I agree that local Chamber events aren’t for everyone OR every type of business.

BUT there is another benefit to participating in your local chamber events. Chambers have committees that are always in need of volunteers. Volunteering allows you to meet new people, showcase your talents and grow into leadership positions.

I’ll leave you with that thought to consider.

If a leadership position is on your list of goals for this year I encourage you to read my post on developing your leadership skills by volunteering at a local membership organization.

For this example you could also use an industry association event or a civic association.

If your ideal business relationship doesn’t exist in your community – or you don’t have the time to connect with them – virtual business networking is a great solution.

Virtual business networking and virtual business relationship building is growing with opportunity.

Sometimes it’s challenging to create a meaningful relationship when there is a computer screen between two people. But don’t discount it – web-based video meetings and coffees have made virtual networking a real option worth trying.

3. Introduce Yourself and Your Business

Keeping with our example of attending an in person event, you’ve decided to humor me and you are going to go to a local Chamber event with the specific goal of practicing introducing yourself and your business to new people.

Before you head out the door it’s important to review your elevator speech – a one to two sentence introduction of your company.

And if you don’t have an elevator speech it’s time to write one.

Not having an elevator speech yet is NOT an excuse to back out of the event that you are planning to attend.

Your goal for the event is to PRACTICE introducing yourself not walk away with a new client or a sale. This is a no pressure situation.

When you get to the event challenge yourself to introduce yourself to at least three people.

To make it even easier I’m going to give you the following two scripts.

If you initiate the introduction:

While shaking someone’s hand you – Jane Smith – say:

“Hello I’m Jane Smith with ABC Consulting”

“Hello Jane, I’m Sara Doe with XYZ Coaching”

“Sara, its nice to meet you. I’d love to learn a little about XYZ Coaching”

The KEY is to say the name of YOUR business and repeat the person’s name while shaking their hand. By asking about their business it will prompt them to ask about yours in return.

Now let’s reverse the conversation – you are still Jane Smith – someone else initiates the introduction:

“Hello, I’m Matt is this your first time at an event here?”

“Hello Matt, I’m Jane Smith with ABC Consulting. Yes, this is my first Chamber event.”

“Jane welcome, what is ABC Consulting?”

And now you share your elevator speech.

The KEY here is again to repeat the person’s name while still shaking their hand. The contact and repetition of the name creates an opportunity for follow up questions.

Do this with AT LEAST three people.

And since this example is a no pressure networking event for you, I’m going to give you another little trick.

Pick a table to sit at that is almost full. Repeat this conversation with the person on each side of you and check off two of your three introductions.

4. Follow-up

You’ve survived the local Chamber event and you met your goal of introducing yourself to at least three people!

Now it’s time for the fourth and final business networking basics step.

This step is critically important regardless of what your goal for the relationships is.

The Follow-up. This is where all of your hard work has an opportunity to lead to the pay off. A new or deeper business relationship.

And while this should be a simple step sometimes it’s the hardest part of all.

To simplify this step, I’m going to break out the Follow-up step into three different options.

• Send a LinkedIn Connection invite with a “nice to have met you” note if you don’t have their contact info or didn’t get their business card.
• Send a quick “nice to have met/seen you” email if you do have their email address.
• Or send a hand written nice to have met/seen you note with your business card in it.

You should aim to complete this within 2 business days of any networking or a business relationship meeting. If its been a week and you still haven’t done any follow-up still do it!

The exception, if you spent your time at an event trying to escape a conversation with someone then of course its okay to not follow-up with them.

For everyone else you met or talk with this is a very important step in developing business relationships.

Your goal was attend an event to practice your network relationship building skills. See this goal through to the final step by completing and practice doing the Follow-up.

Conclusion

Putting yourself out there and growing professional business relationships or networking can sound overwhelming especially when you spend your days working from home.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be! By following four easy business networking basics steps you can start to develop “in real life” relationships to grow your business. And you can do it with our feeling salesy!

There was a lot of information in this post so let’s quickly review.

1. Know Your Goal for Each Relationship.
2. Identify Where Your People Gather for Business Opportunities
3. Introduce Yourself and Your Business
4. And Follow-up

Let me know below which networking goal you are planning to tackle first and how it goes!

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