Five Tips To Follow When You Have Just Joined a Networking Group

By Dr. Adrian Robichaud, BSc, DC.

1. Introduce yourself to everyone and be sure to give out your cards. It may seem like you don’t need to give out cards, since you are in the group and everyone will get to know you over time, but it speeds up name recall when the others have your card and of course they can give it to someone else who could need your business.
2. Give bite sized bits of information when doing your one minute presentation. Remember it is supposed to be one minute. Many people who are new feel like they have to get all of their information out there or they might miss some business opportunity. Just give out one or two points at a time. You should be attending regularly and over time your whole story will be out there.
3. This brings me to my third point. In order to get more of your story out there and to learn more about others in your group arrange one on one meetings that will allow for more time and then you can tell more of your story. If your group has a longer presentation day, such as a ten minute presentation, tell more of your story then, but keep it to one main topic. Ten minutes will not be enough time to get your whole story out there and you will either rush or go overtime. If it is too much information your audience will forget much of what you tell.
4. Pick a one minute strategy and try it out for a while. For instance, do you want one message that you repeat every week. For example, there was once a bankruptcy trustee in my group who gave the same one minute every week. She would say, “hello I am **** and I help people who can’t pay their debts.” I haven’t heard this presentation in about ten years and I still remember it, because she repeated it so many times. Guess what, if I meet someone who can’t pay his/her debts, I am going to give them her information. Another strategy is to give a new point every meeting to spread out what you do to expose your group to lead opportunities.
5. Be patient. Sometimes you will get leads right away and that is very reassuring, but other times, it can take a while. It all averages out no matter how you get leads, so stick with it. Give the group at least a year before deciding if it is working for you. Compared to other means of advertising networking is relatively inexpensive. I spend over ten times as much on internet marketing than I do on my networking group. It doesn’t yield as much return, but it is well worth doing.