Top Tips for Preparing for a Networking Event

Did you know, “95% of people say face-to-face meetings are essential for long-term business relationships”? Networking is the perfect opportunity to meet like-minded business people looking to expand their business and drive it forwards.

Here are our top 5 tips to help you prepare for a networking event:

Know your purpose
Know your purpose and reason for going to the networking event. Deciding the key reasons why you’re attending the event will help you use your time wisely and speak to the right people instead of the wrong people. A networking event isn’t about getting as many business cards as possible and vice versa, it’s about making connections and building mutually beneficial relationships with surrounding businesses.

Be prepared
Do you research before you turn up on the day to see who is attending the event. That way you’ll be able to plan who you want to see. You can look up the exhibitors you're keen to meet and do some background research, so you’ll know a bit about them and be able to have some questions and conversation starters prepared.

Conversation starters
Dressing to impress is key at networking events. Dressing to impress can be done in different forms, for example, by wearing a conversation starter, such as statement jewellry, an unusual brotch or a colourful tie, it will help you to stand out, make you more approachable and easier to start up a conversation with. It could even make you more memorable! You don’t always have to wear conversation starters, but it helps! You can also have conversation starter topics ready to go.

Pitch
Be pitch ready! Prepare your pitch and deliver it with conviction. You have one chance to make a good first impression and having a pitch prepared will help make a good first impression and prevent you from forgetting major details. Practice makes perfect so you may want to run it past your colleagues to see if they have anything else to contribute.

Get in contact
Make sure you take contact details from each person so you can follow up with them, whether that be email, business cards or via LinkedIn. Get in contact with them as soon as you can as you’ll be fresh in their mind, also they’re going to be contacted by a lot of other people they spoke to at the event as well!