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For over a year, I’ve consistently attended business conferences. With my attendance, I have always laid the groundwork for bringing in future revenue in the thousands. However, this conference it was my goal to leave the conference with “cash in hand” (more like digital payments, but you get it). This isn’t my first article on networking strategies. I first shared some of my strategies HERE and used some as a foundation. I want to lay out the exact strategies I used to leave with $10,794 in the bank and the potential for more after the event.
Clarity. There are very few things you can do with success in business without clarity. A lot of huge events use apps like WHOA for attendees to network digitally, even before the event starts. My clarity started there. I was very clear in my bio: who I serve and what my credentials were to do so. I was clear in my introduction on the message boards about who I was looking to meet and who should be looking to connect with me. And finally, to make it clear how to find me, I wear logo’d apparel every day of the conference and posted pictures so that people knew what I looked like each day. All of these strategies brought ideal clients to me that I hadn’t even physically met yet. This yielded a lot of people following me on social media and joining my online community.
Politicking. I “shook hands and kissed the babies”. Much like politicians, you gotta get out there amongst the people and actual meet them. During high-traffic times (between speakers), I was in high-traffic areas. This allowed people looking for me to find me easily. I was able to speak to and give my Southern hugs to a lot of new and old connections. I had QR Codes ready for people to join my online community and to schedule future discovery calls. I also scheduled time to meet with people who sent inbox messages and tagged me on forum discussions. I handled these meetings to be like in-person discovery calls. This yielded the sale of 3 strategy sessions.
Meet-up. The WHOA app also allowed us to schedule and invite attendees to a meet-up. I picked a hot topic (a.i.) and how it relates to what I am an expert in (small business growth) and invited people to a dinner meet-up that I capped at 10 people to be easily seated by the on-site restaurant. The meet-up quickly hit capacity and I stayed in touch with attendees in the app until our table was ready. The discussion was lively and I left having made new connections that like know and trust me as an expert. This yielded the sale of 2 workshop replays. I also created a lead magnet to go with this experience. I gave it to attendees but also posted it generally in the WHOA app, which brought 80 people onto my email list.
Touch-base. I intentionally connected with people I already knew to let them know I was present and to remind them of who I am, what I’ve been up to lately, and who I’m looking to work with as I got the same information about them. This yielded scheduled discovery calls, scheduled meetings, and referrals.
If you do the work of networking, it will pay off. My strategy sessions are currently $3,500 and I sold 3. The workshop replays purchased were $147 and I sold 2. That’s a net of $10,794 made at the event with the potential for more revenue from the connections that have scheduled calls and been referred.
Need help with your networking strategy? Let’s talk. It’s FREE. ShaCannon.info/talk