The work in Networking

Having started up my freelance business of Event Planning again recently, I've been doing a lot of research on how to go about meeting people and acquiring new clients and getting my name out there.  One of the tools that I have found to be extremely helpful is Social Media.  Gone are the days where a business owner has to go door-to-door to present their services, or even distributing flyers on windshields and whatnot.  Managing all of your social media channels is a job in itself and is quite time consuming, so you really have to be ready to put in a lot of time to do this.  But in the end I think it's a great way to market yourself at no cost to you except for your time.

The other thing that I've discovered is that networking events are a great way to meet potential clients.  This is all very new to me, as until this week, I had never attended any networking events before, and I was frankly a bit nervous about it.  When I was younger, public speaking was one of my biggest fears, and attending networking events made me nervous because of exactly that.  It's nerve racking to just go up to people and introduce yourself, but I've had to really get over that fear, and honestly, the more I do it, the easier it gets.

Courtesy of Evenkai
http://evenkai.ca/event/meex5/

The two networking events I attended this week were both very different from one another which is great because it really gave me an idea of what to expect for those different types of events.  The first one was more of a networking 5 à 7 type of thing called MEEX which was hosted by Evenkai.  The formula is a good one; you pay $18.50 for a ticket, which gives you the entrance fee, some snacks and drinks and you get to hear a speaker talk about different subjects.  This one in particular had Sandy Sidhu presenting 'I ''liked you'', what's next?' which was a very interesting talk about social media and building good relationships online and offline.  My take on this type of networking event was that it was a nice place to socialize, but i'm not sure that this is where you'll make the most business contacts because of the more cocktail party atmosphere.  But nevertheless, I actually enjoyed my first networking event and would probably attend other ones like this in the future.

Courtesy of www.scena.ca

The second networking event I attended was in relation to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal and was called SME Network Mornings held at Scena in the Old Port of Montreal.  This was a members only networking event which was in a round table setting with 10 people per table.  I thoroughly enjoyed this event because in my opinion this was far more lucrative for business relations and an exchange of business cards and contacts.  Everyone at the table gets about 5 minutes to introduce themselves and their company and what they do exactly and what they hope to achieve with this networking event.  No two company is the same or from the same background, so you are assured not to have a bunch of other people that offer the same services as you do at your table. I was hesitant about becoming a member of the Board of trade because I wasn't sure that the cost of membership would end up paying for itself with the contacts I would make.  But just from this first networking event, I believe that I made the right decision in becoming a member and I really have high hopes that this will really help get my business into high gear and acquire all kinds of new clients.

So all in all networking is definitely a lot of work, but I feel that it's work that will totally pay off in the end and I plan to attend a lot more of these events to really get a feel for it and to get my business rolling in the right direction.