Networking Insight

Tips for Building Relationships During the Summer

Summer is a great time to build your existing relationships as well as build new ones too. People are generally more relaxed and have more opportunities to connect. Below are some tips to assist you in building relationships during the summer.

- Reach out to people and schedule coffee, lunch, or after work drinks. With some peoples' schedules not as busy during the summer, find a time to meet with various people already in your network.

- Attend events held outdoors. Find opportunities to meet new people at outside happy hours, sporting events, or festivals.

- Host your own gatherings to bring your existing network together with new people. Great opportunity to connect people together.

- Find opportunities to speak at industry events so you can share your expertise. Building your personal brand is an important element of relationship building.

- Play in or coach team sports such as softball and basketball. Will give you the opportunity to meet many like-minded people who share a common goal for the sports team.

What other relationship building tips do you have for the summer?

Utilizing Personal Branding During a Career Change by Guest Blogger

After months of contemplation and research, you’ve finally decided the time is right for you to take that next big career step. Whether that step is switching to a similar role in a slightly different field, or an entirely new role in an uncharted discipline, transitioning to an unfamiliar job is certainly a time of change. A career shift is not just an opportunity to create a new professional path; you also have the freedom to update your personal brand to utilize your potential in your freshly chosen career.

Clean Up All Social Media Profiles
LinkedIn, a social networking site designed for professionals, is a great way to create and maintain connections, providing you use the platform correctly. If you already have a LinkedIn profile, then it’s imperative you spend some time making it relevant to the career you’re pursuing. Search up professionals that are already in the industry you want to be in, and see what kind of experience helped them get to the positions they’re in. It’s also a good way to keep up with current events in the industry you’re trying to break in to. Every industry has its own unique “buzz words”, and including such terms in your profile and cover letters will help you stand out to hiring managers. However, only include keywords that have a relevant connection to your previous experience; stuffing your resume with irrelevant terms will likely result in your application being tossed in the trash.

On the topic of cleaning up your LinkedIn, it’s also important to make sure all of your other online profiles are clean as well. Even if you have strong privacy settings in place, it could be a good idea to delete any content you wouldn’t want a hiring manager to see. Reaching out to your current network is a great way to find opportunities in a new field, and you never know who might be able to help you get the job of your dreams. You don’t want a slightly offensive post from 2012 to hold you back from realizing your fullest potential.

Seek Out Professional Feedback
As you make your career transition, it’s important to know what you can improve on professionally before entering a new field and role. While you’re still in your current role, seek out some professional feedback from both your managers and coworkers. A big step in upgrading your professional brand is being aware of what you excel at, and what you can work on. Even if you’re looking to drastically change careers, hearing constructive criticism or praise on a personal level from people that have worked with you for a long time will make it easier to answer behavioral questions in an interview, in addition to helping you build a stronger personal brand in your next role.

Know How to Look the Part
Different career fields typically have different standards when it comes to what is appropriate office attire. If you find yourself in an office that allows jeans and you’ve been wearing a full suit and tie for the past twenty years, you’ll have some adjusting to do, and vice versa. Before you make a career switch, it’s a good idea to look into what “dressing for success” looks like in your new industry. Even in the most casual settings, you should always dress in business professional attire for an interview. After you’ve gotten the job, you can relax a little bit, however, one should always err on the side of professional rather than casual for the purpose of maintaining a strong personal brand. Wearing ripped jeans that still have evidence of last weekend’s BBQ will not only make you seem less professional, but could hurt your chances of getting promoted.

When it comes to presenting yourself, clothing isn’t the only way to maximize your personal brand. Ladies looking to upgrade their professional image should go for a clean and natural makeup look in the office. Women that prefer a heavier face full of makeup should by no means stop applying it if that’s what makes them more confident, however, one should try to avoid the darker tones that are typically associated with a night out. Gentlemen looking to upgrade their look should make sure their facial hair is trimmed neatly with appropriate products for their preferred beard type. Showing up to work with wild, unruly facial hair or shaving cuts will distract from an overall strong professional brand.

Connect with Alumni from Your Alma Mater to Build Powerful Allies

When building relationships finding commonality with others is an important strategy to grow your network. Commonality can take many forms with family, school, employer, sports, and hobbies.

One of the most powerful connection points for people is their alma mater. Going to college is such a pivotal time in anyone's life that you usually form a strong connection to your school. So chances are they many other alumni feel the same way. The college experience defines many people's lives while going to school but also sets the path for their life afterwards.

Most major cities have alumni associations for certain universities. If one exists in your city, it is worth exploring because you can continue to support your school but one another. Connecting with other alumni is a powerful way to build up the quality of your network.

Building trust and credibility are important elements of a long-term sustainable relationship. By starting with a deep bond for one's alma mater, you have a good beginning point to build a relationship. As these alumni relationships continue to build, business will start taking place.

Alumni can support one another with clients, strategic relationships, employees, capital, and really any type of scenario. Universities understand the power of keeping their alumni connected to the school, which can also result in a donation back to the school. 

One great example of keeping alumni connected is Alumni Ventures Group, which has developed a network of alumni based funds for a variety of schools. The funds allow alumni to support fellow alumni by providing them a vehicle to invest in their companies through a venture capital fund.

Take the time to connect with other alumni through LinkedIn, your alumni association, sporting events, or a number of other ways. Building up your network with other alumni is an effective way to add powerful allies to your life.

How Event Technology is Shaping the Future of Networking by Shannon Kelly

Technology is constantly changing the way we connect with the world around us. Thanks to social media platforms like LinkedIn, we can communicate with someone halfway around the world at the click of a button. But changes in technology are not only improving online connection opportunities – face-to-face networking is also rapidly evolving as a result of technologies that have emerged in the last few years. Here’s how event technology is improving networking online and in-person.

Matching technologies make meetings more strategic.

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to networking is connecting the right people. At large events, it’s particularly difficult for attendees to form concrete connections in a room full of people they know nothing about. In the past, it was impossible to strategically pair people together without spending a ton of time manually matching participants. Today, technology can do that for you. Whether it’s connecting people based on shared interests, common goals, specific industries, experience, or job function, algorithms and software have been developed to ensure all attendees are meeting with people whose interests and experience align with their unique preferences. It’s more strategic, structured, and effective.

Social networking platforms and event apps help facilitate discussions and increase participation.

Social networking platforms and event apps are an innovative way to facilitate discussions among event attendees who don’t have the opportunity or ability to meet face-to-face. Online message boards, Q&A sessions, live streaming, and real-time polling are just some of the ways event technology is helping attendees feel more involved and engaged. In addition, some event apps allow attendees to directly message other attendees, thus allowing for one-on-one conversations among individuals who have similar interests.

Event technology helps event planners create more personalized experiences for their attendees.

Perhaps one of the most powerful parts of event technology is its innovative ability to create more personalized experiences for your event attendees. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, event technology is making it possible for attendees to offer feedback, and in some cases, even on-the-spot select what types of programming and networking they want to take part in. Allowing attendees to select what types of activities, speakers, and networking sessions they’re interested in helps give each person a unique event experience and connect with the right people at the touch of their finger. In today’s fast-paced, smartphone-centric, immediate gratification driven world, that is paramount.

All in all, event technology is proving to be an important component in improving attendee event experience. Whether it’s through event apps, social networks, matching software, or more personalized event experiences, technology is enhancing networking by allowing it’s users to connect, collaborate, and communicate more efficiently and more effectively than ever before.

Interested in learning more about event technology that helps connect the right people? SpeedNetworking.com takes the traditional value of face-to-face networking and combines it with an advanced matching software to take in-person networking to the next level. It’s strategic, structured, effective, and fun! Visit speednetworking.com to learn more.

Find Multiple Employees Through Your Network

Relationships are critical to building and growing a company, especially when it comes to finding good employees. In the early days of a company, leveraging your network is generally an effective and inexpensive way to find employees. Really at any stage of development, your network can be a critical ally.

You want to find people who are trusted and good referrals. Usually your network can make those recommendations. Many times those making the introductions are similar to the candidates that they refer. If you like the demeanor, work ethic, and personality of the referrer, then chances are those who they recommend you will like as well. Of course, some referrals may be bad hires but that can happens even if you pay a recruiter to assist you.

Another great tool that can leverage your network is LinkedIn. Spend time researching potential candidates on LinkedIn and then ask for introductions to those in your network who have first degree connections. In fact, many recruiters leverage LinkedIn to find good qualified candidates. The bigger your LinkedIn network, the more opportunity to find a wide variety of candidates. However, make sure that you know those who you connect with on LinkedIn vs. just trying to connect with everyone. If you ask for an introduction from someone who you barely know (or don't know at all), chances are that this person will not be helpful in connecting you to a potential candidate.

Focus on building a diverse network across genders, industries, skillsets, and geographies. The more diverse your network, the better chance that you will be able to leverage your relationships to find a variety of employees

 

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Five Emotions Experienced in Business Relationship Building

While interacting with others in business, you will experience a whole set up emotions. Learn from these emotions so you can build better business relationships. Below are a few of those emotions:

Happiness - When you meet someone and you instantly click, you should feel happiness. It is important to continuously seek out these types of relationships. In fact, any interaction with people that causes you happiness is something to strive for with you relationships.

Anger - Certain people can make you angry by their words or actions. When you find this type of person, it is best to stay away. Keep positive people around you as much as possible.

Frustration - With some people you may really click but the relationship becomes one sided. You seem to be the only one who is providing value with connections, guidance, resources, etc. Keep these relationships in check. If the one-sided relationship continues for an extended period of time, you need to re-evaluate the relationship.

Comfortable - With some relationships, you just let them play out and hope to turn them into more positive. At the same time, it is difficult to remain engaged with everyone. For better or worse, you will have many relationships that still need to evolve into something of more value.

Fascination - Meeting people for the first time can be exciting because it is fascinating to learn about peoples' lives and business. By getting to know people, you can find ways to support them, which is good for long term relationship building. 

What other emotions do you experience?

Five Reasons Why Your Business Relationship Building Could be Suffering

Building business relationships is something that we do just about every day. Most days we experience positive outcomes from interacting with others. However, at times, we may also fail to generate a good outcome from our efforts.

Several reasons may exist as to why our business relationship efforts can suffer:

1. Poor or negative attitude - If you are emitting a bad vibe, then people may stay away from you. As a result, your efforts will most likely fall flat. Stay positive as much as possible around others.

2. One-sided relationships - For a relationship to last over time, both sides need to make it work. If you find yourself as mostly a "taker" from certain people, then chances are that these people will stop interacting with you. It is okay to ask for assistance but you should also have a plan to give it back.

3. Building the wrong relationships - Building a network of quality and diverse people is generally better than a large network. Focus on building fewer key relationships who have access to a larger and influential network. Be more strategic in your relationship building. Your time is a precious commodity.

4. Lack of nurturing existing relationships - While it is important to continuously meet new people, it is equally if not more important to build up your existing relationships. You should keep some of your key relationships strong by interacting on a regular basis while providing value. 

5. Find new ways to meet people - Diversifying how you meet new people will keep you fresh and give you the opportunity to meet people who you may not have met otherwise. Be creative and find new ways to meet people both online and in person.

What other reasons why could your business relationship building be suffering?

Take a Step Back and Reflect on Your Relationship Building

Most of us are moving very fast every day. We are active people who rarely take the time to relax. Because of our busy lives, we sometimes lose our ability to appreciate what we have in our lives.

So take a step back and slow down a little bit to reflect on your business relationships. Did you put yourself in good situations to meet new people? Are you active building your existing relationships? Are there some people in your network that you should let go?

Take the time to ask yourself some questions so you can understand if your efforts are paying off. Business relationships are a critical component of your professional life so spend time evaluating your biggest business asset. 

Once you analyze your efforts, you will be able to put together a strategy to better maximize your time and be more efficient in building your relationships. Time is something that we loose every day so make the best use of it. 

Over time, you will realize that it is more important to have a quality and diverse network than a large network. So, take stock of who you are connected to and who you want to add to your network. You want to be actively engaged building your network on a regular basis.

Find a Business Partner Through Your Network

Entrepreneurs need all types of relationships to build and grow a company. Many of these early relationships will come from an entrepreneur's own personal network. Relationships needed include employees, co-founders, investors, and business partners. 

While it can take time to form business partnerships, it is still worth the effort. Entrepreneurs should leverage their network to find these partnerships. They should ask certain people for referrals to potential partners. 

Business partners are instrumental for a company's growth. The key is to form strategic relationships that can ultimately lead to more sales. Business relationships could be for functional areas such as marketing sales, finance, HR, and operations. By building these types of relationships, entrepreneurs can fill in gaps that they are lacking in the core team. Usually, these partnerships are formed early on as a company is ramping up its business. As more and more sales come in, then a company will hire some of these positions. 

Business partners should still be vetted like any type of key relationship for a company. Get reference checks and evaluate three different people for each type of relationship. It is good to have choices and to have a backup. By being careful about who you with, you will be positioning your company for success. Take time to find the right business partners.

20 Words to Jump Start Your Business Relationships for the New Year

During the holidays at year end, you want to make sure that you are still focused on building business relationships early in the new year. Since holiday time is generally more relaxed, take the time to prepare and motivate yourself for the new year. Make the new year a great time to build up your network.

Below are 20 words to jump start the new year for your relationship building:

1. Customers
2. Revenue
3. Investors
4. Partnerships
5. Friends
6. Brand
7. Job
8. Strategy
9. Opportunity
10. Social
11. Connection
12. Mentorship
13. Event
14. Lunch
15. Coffee
16. Newsletter
17. Media
18. Invitation
19. Sponsor
20. Fun

What other words come to mind?