A Big Mistake in Business

... NOT ATTENDING MORE LIVE EVENTS

Why Attending Live Events Is So Important

By Vince Golder, Goldnet Referral Marketing,  M: 07799348642

See www.goldnetreferralmarketing.co.uk for more information

As a business owner, director or manager, you probably get several invitations a month to attend local or national business events.

Like most senior managers you are very busy in your business, you consider you don’t have the time to get up very early and travel on busy roads or trains to get to crowded venues, then after a hectic few hours or full day you have to face the journey back tired from the experience of it all.  So why bother?

Well instead of sitting in your office doing mundane tasks, you could attend a live event, you will rub shoulders with like-minded, entrepreneurial people who share the same interests, passions and goals as you do.  There is something special that happens when you bring together a group of passionate, like-minded people.  Relationships are made, ideas flow and joint ventures and mastermind groups are created.

Attending live events also gets you out of your daily element and puts you into an environment that allows you to review your current business practices and helps you to expand your thinking on how to make dramatic improvements in your business.  In essence, it helps you to "work on your business instead of in your business."

No matter how good (or bad) the event was, you should always come away from it with some great contacts from exhibitors and people you meet.  Follow simple networking practices and you will make contact and start building relationships with like-minded business people, who may be your next clients, or even become one of your best “referral introducers” to several prospective clients. 

If you work a good event properly, you should go away with at least 10 – 14 business cards from warm, receptive, like-minded people, who have talked to you and found you an interesting people to know (as long as you talk least about yourself and have more interested in them).  You will never get such good contacts in just one day from any other marketing strategies. 

When you follow-up on your new contacts you can plan and use several approaches that will all end in a further meeting i.e.

“It was good to meet you the other day at ……… event, I have an interest in some of the things you said, can we meet up and discuss some ideas on how we could work together to benefit our businesses?”

Or

“You stated you had a problem with competitors and acquiring new business, I have thought about your challenges and have a couple of ideas to share with you”

Etc….

When done properly, attending events can be very successful and productive, especially niche events for certain markets.  If your niche customer market is IT, retail, building, professional, leisure, engineering etc. then you must attend those events that cater for your customer market, be it from meeting exhibitors or attendees.

A far better and more powerful networking tool than business cards are referral cards, which are A6 (postcard) size, which easily fit into shirt and jacket pockets, ladies bags etc. and using both sides of the card can say much more about you, your company, your products and services and the benefits you can give etc.  Using referral cards frees you up on talking about yourself, as you know it is best practice to listen, ask questions and be interested in your contact and their business then waffle on about yourself.

So before you decline the next invitation to attend an event, think about how that event could work for you and your business on gaining vital information, education, motivation and the potential of meeting several like-minded people who could help you in your business.