Do you take full advantage of network meetings or do you find yourself getting in the habit of only talking to people you know, eating a nice meal or listening to an interesting presentation? I admit I will often do that and make sure I do the obligatory business card exchange. It’s easy to do. A lot of business people are in a rush to either get back to the office or in the case of an evening meeting, get home to family, etc.

On Monday (August 13, 2007) I attended the Upstate Entrepreneur’s Forum at the Warehouse Theater. The main speaker was Jon Evans of Big Jon International. Jon is a motivational speaker and sales trainer and presented a very simple message that stuck with me and I had the chance to check out a book he mentioned called the Little Black Book of Connections which expounded on one the simple principles he mentioned including “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.” If I had to break down what I remember learning from his talk it would be;

1. Talk to someone you don’t know and get to know them - All to often we get comfortable with our groups and gravitate to a select group of people we already know.
2. Take immediate action on a business card - All to often we exchange business cards and quickly pocket them and say thank you and rarely act. The best place to act on them is immediately after the card exchange by asking key questions related to the cards content, etc.

I also asked Jon what were some networking opportunities beyond the “typical and official” business network meeting and he suggested volunteering. Of course one should volunteer for something they believe in and actually volunteer with the right motivation but in the process of helping others out you can make great connections with fellow volunteers united under a common goal while at the same time giving back to the community and helping it improve.

Jimmy John’s and The Cook’s Station provided great sub sandwiches and drinks respectively. I thank them for donating to the meeting and will definitely consider supporting their businesses.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 8:13 am and is filed under Organization, Print, Tips, Upstate,SC, branding, networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.