f your best prospects (yes, the best, this costs time and money, so use your resources wisely)
• Know the profile of the typical attendee to a particular networking event – select ones where this profile matches your prospect profile

2) Prepare for networking events

Let’s start with how not to prepare—forget the elevator speech or the 30 second commercial! You don’t need, or wa

Imagine there are three fishing nets in front of you. The first one is full of business cards you collected during a networking event. The next one has no cards because you spent all your networking time giving away your own cards. The final net has a few business cards and written on them are times and dates for mutually agreed-upon follow up phone calls.

Which networking style is your favorite? Each approach seems to have a benefit. If you collect lots of cards, you can add those people to your database and mailing list. If you give your card to everyone, you are fulfilling the axiom that ‘it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.’ If you exchange cards with a few people and make plans to follow-up, there is a chance that you could do business together.

What if you suddenly realized that what is important is the net itself? Look at a net. Small, light weight fibers are connected together and those are connected to other small fibers. It’s the intersection of the fibers that creates the net and that gives something quite flimsy serious heft and utility. You should approach business networking with that mind set: create the net, tighten the connections, and increase the number of connections and the ‘working’ will fall into place. The greater the number of tight connections there are the greater the wealth the net will capture over time.

How do you create a strongly connected wealth network? Focus on the connections and the wealth network will build itself.

1) Attend networking events where the people you want to meet will be
• Know the profile of your best prospects (yes, the best, this costs time and money, so use your resources wisely)
• Know the profile of the typical attendee to a particular networking event – select ones where this profile matches your prospect profile

2) Prepare for networking events

Let’s start with how not to prepare—forget the elevator speech or the 30 second commercial! You don’t need, or wan

ite? Each approach seems to have a benefit. If you collect lots of cards, you can add those people to your database and mailing list. If you give your card to everyone, you are fulfilling the axiom that ‘it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.’ If you exchange cards with a few people and make plans to follow-up, there is a chance that you could do business together.

What if you suddenly realized that what is important is the net itself? Look at a net. Small, light weight fibers are connected together and those are connected to other small fibers. It’s the intersection of the fibers that creates the net and that gives something quite flimsy serious heft and utility. You should approach business networking with that mind set: create the net, tighten the connections, and increase the number of connections and the ‘working’ will fall into place. The greater the number of tight connections there are the greater the wealth the net will capture over time.

How do you create a strongly connected wealth network? Focus on the connections and the wealth network will build itself.

1) Attend networking events where the people you want to meet will be
• Know the profile of your best prospects (yes, the best, this costs time and money, so use your resources wisely)
• Know the profile of the typical attendee to a particular networking event – select ones where this profile matches your prospect profile

2) Prepare for networking events

Let’s start with how not to prepare—forget the elevator speech or the 30 second commercial! You don’t need, or wa

lized that what is important is the net itself? Look at a net. Small, light weight fibers are connected together and those are connected to other small fibers. It’s the intersection of the fibers that creates the net and that gives something quite flimsy serious heft and utility. You should approach business networking with that mind set: create the net, tighten the connections, and increase the number of connections and the ‘working’ will fall into place. The greater the number of tight connections there are the greater the wealth the net will capture over time.

How do you create a strongly connected wealth network? Focus on the connections and the wealth network will build itself.

1) Attend networking events where the people you want to meet will be
• Know the profile of your best prospects (yes, the best, this costs time and money, so use your resources wisely)
• Know the profile of the typical attendee to a particular networking event – select ones where this profile matches your prospect profile

2) Prepare for networking events

Let’s start with how not to prepare—forget the elevator speech or the 30 second commercial! You don’t need, or wa

mber of connections and the ‘working’ will fall into place. The greater the number of tight connections there are the greater the wealth the net will capture over time.

How do you create a strongly connected wealth network? Focus on the connections and the wealth network will build itself.

1) Attend networking events where the people you want to meet will be
• Know the profile of your best prospects (yes, the best, this costs time and money, so use your resources wisely)
• Know the profile of the typical attendee to a particular networking event – select ones where this profile matches your prospect profile

2) Prepare for networking events

Let’s start with how not to prepare—forget the elevator speech or the 30 second commercial! You don’t need, or wa

f your best prospects (yes, the best, this costs time and money, so use your resources wisely)
• Know the profile of the typical attendee to a particular networking event – select ones where this profile matches your prospect profile

2) Prepare for networking events

Let’s start with how not to prepare—forget the elevator speech or the 30 second commercial! You don’t need, or want, a perfect 30 second commercial or elevator speech.

Why? They are phony—who talks like that? Who listens like that? Who connects like that? They are all about you—and the other person, whom you have just met, wants to tell you about himself or herself. That’s the human way. So don’t fight it—make this self interest work for you.

What should you do to prepare?

• Review the kinds of problems you solve for your best prospects—make this a short list of succinct ideas

• Review the comments people make that tell you they have these problems – in other words, people typically talk around their problems and you have to interpret and check them out

Here’s a short routine to practice out loud until it is second nature: • Ask the other person: “What brought you here today?” Then you listen, listen, listen

• Then ask: “What’s the biggest challenge in your business today?” You encourage the speaker to elaborate with quiet phrases such as: ‘really’, ‘tell me more about that’, ‘what have you done?’, ‘how has it worked?’

3) Card exchanges:

If another person asks you some questions first and you decide to answer them, do not immediately offer your card. Wait until the other person asks for your card. Then—be deliberate in how you give it away.

Your card is valuable, and you want something in exchange for it. Say, “thanks for asking for my card” while you are holding it carefully in your hand. “I just wonder, what did I say that made you decide to ask for my card?” You get a lead on what problem they think you might be able to solve. You ca