Networking is something you either love or you hate, or you find it the easiest thing in the world or the most difficult concept known to man. Either way, it’s key to succeeding in business, especially when you’re just starting off on your own, trying to make a career out of a company you believe in.
You want people to know about your business, and you want to score some referrals, and you won’t do that just sitting in your office!
It’s something every single entrepreneur is going to have to face up to, and it’s the one thing freelancers can all agree is very scary to approach! But once you jump in at the deep end, and find yourself thrashing about, what can you do to stabilise yourself?
Well, you might be able to put these confidence-boosting ways to work!
Help Yourself Look Professional
Networking is all about looking confident, and being able to project that front to the rest of the world. It’s about walking up to someone, being to introduce yourself and what you do, and then ask the same of them. Simply put, it’s being able to be clear with your goal, and to be able to put that into words, without sweating too much.
It’s fine if you’re nervous – really, it is! Because you can prepare yourself for networking events, and for contacting the big wigs to find out if they’re in need of your services.
You can write out an email, you can prepare a list of questions to hold in your head until you can say them out loud, and you can use one of these meeting rooms for hire to bring a corporate professional along. If you don’t like the idea of a coffee shop and don’t want to bring them into your home office, that’s a viable option to go with!
Pick a Few Faces From the Crowd
So, you attend as many conferences as possible, because you know consistency is key. If you manage to maintain a presence, for your business and brand, people are going to start recognising you. Even just signing up for as many networking events as you can is a good start!
But once you arrive, it’s time to get down to business. There’s an entire hall of people at your disposal, and seeing the crowd in full can be terribly overwhelming. This is why it’s necessary to remember that they’re not all possible connections, and you don’t need to introduce yourself to all of them!
Pick two or three faces out of the crowd and focus on them; put your perfectly prepared pitch to use on them, hand out your business cards to them, and the rest will be history!
Don’t worry if you get no response from a couple of them; at the moment, you’re just building your confidence.
So, networking is a necessary evil. It’s something you’re definitely going to feel better about doing, so make sure you focus on confidence!
