Entrepreneurs' Forum of Greater Philadelphia

Networking should always be purposeful. As much as we might like to socialize, we are attending networking events to grow our business. We all know, the best way to grow business is through building relationships. To solidify the relationship, we schedule a one on one sessions and meet for coffee learn more about each others’ respective businesses. Our goal: to get referrals – right? We ask them; “Who do you know that might be a good introduction for me, or can use my products and services?” and typically they scratch their head and say, “I can’t think of anyone at the moment, but I will keep you in mind should I meet someone who is looking” – Not exactly the most productive meeting, and now we have invested at least 2 precious hours including travel time, and $5 bucks on a cup of joe. Leveraging these relationships to get warm introductions to qualified leads rarely seems to happen, but yet we know growing these relationships is the key to eventually growing our business. Utilizing LinkedIn changes this conversation significantly:

Send a LinkedIn invitation to connect with your networking buddy prior to your meeting and say:

Dear Networking Buddy,

I am looking forward to our meeting on Thursday morning and thought we should connect on LinkedIn first. Please feel free to look through my connections and write down anyone that you would like an introduction to and we can review them when we meet.

When you connect on LinkedIn, look through their connections and write down at least 5 names of targeted prospects that you would like to get introduced to. At your one on one meeting ask your networking buddy, “Did you have a chance to go through my connections?” Then review them and/or say “I noticed a few people that you were connected to that would make great introduction for me, would you mind if I ran them by you?” You just might walk away with 3 or 4 solid introductions – That is maximizing your networking efforts! You may have just had the most productive hour of your week? Now, do this once every week and see how your business explodes! –Brynne Tillman, President Business Development University