Before You Start
You need to answer a few key questions at the outset:
- What do you do?
- Who are you looking for?
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- What makes you “sticky?”
What Do You Do?
There’s a very fine balance you have to strike here between succinctness and self-promotion. If you call yourself a Chiropractor, does that communicate, differentiate, and position appropriately? Maybe it’d be better to lightly embellish. But does “Alternative Healthcare Provider” work much better? What about “Holistic Wellness Coordinator”?
More important than a title (you should probably stick with the shortest possible option) is your one sentence description of what you do. Much has been made of the 60-second commercial, the elevator pitch. That’s fine— but most people are either interested or not in the first few seconds of meeting you. What’s your one-sentence answer to “What do you do?”
“I heal pain.”
“I relieve stress.”
“I fix pipes.”
“I sue people.”
Notice that none of those involve the over-used formula, “I help people…”
Sometimes “I help people” is the best way to start, but much less often than you’d think if you’ve ever sat through an hour of 45 second networking introductions. I suggest, even if you think it’s the best way to explain what you do, that you eliminate it. You don’t want to start the same way as everybody else, because you shouldn’t want to be like everybody else.
Who are you looking for?
Sounds obvious, but if you don’t know who you want to meet, you probably won’t know where to go to meet them. See how specific you can be about your networking targets (which may or may not be the same as your target market), and use that profile to determine what events you go to and who you talk to when you’re there.
In the context of Thought Leadership, you need to answer this question by answering another question:
Whose thoughts do you want to lead?
What are you trying to accomplish?
Ultimately, make more sales and make more money, I imagine.
Strategically, you’re trying to position yourself as a Local Thought Leader.
But at any specific event— are you trying to find prospects? Mentors? Referral sources? Business partners?
Maybe you’re just trying to make a bit of a splash in the community for the first time.
Maybe you’re trying to learn more about something.
The more defined you can be about your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them.
What makes you “sticky?”
If no one remembers you ten minutes or ten hours after they’ve met you, it’s as effective as if you didn’t meet them at all (sometimes less).
What is going to make people remember you later?
This is where all the other Thought Leadership stuff makes a big difference.
If you have a really cool business card, I’ll notice it later.
If you have a great site that’s well-optimized, I’ll find you when I look you up.
If you have a blog, I might read an article or even subscribe.
If you’re on social networking sites, I might link to you, follow you, or friend you.
If you’re giving a free workshop in two weeks, I might come.
If you run your own networking group, I might join.
If you have a book, I might buy it.
Old school sales and marketing people used to talk about “touches.”
You’d have to “touch” someone eight times, with a note, a newsletter, a phone call, a visit, a coffee, whatever, before they would buy from you or engage with you. That takes a lot of energy.
When you have a well-planned Thought Leadership campaign in place, people can opt-in to an ongoing series of touches in a way that is both satisfying and scalable.
Where to go?
The short answer is:
Anywhere there are people.
And that’s pretty much true.
Even better than “anywhere,” are places where your target networking contacts congregate.
Obvious, right? Go where the people you want to meet are. To a lot of people, this isn’t so obvious, because they never bothered to identify their networking targets. Once you have, it’s a bit easier to track down events and meetings to attend. You just have to know where to look.
Finding networking events should be a regular part of your weekly workflow. It can often take a few hours to identify what’s going on in your area and what is worth going to.
