Do you have few opportunities of meeting interesting people? Great business possibilities abound in a well organized leads group. Here you’ll find the right tips on how to arrange meaningful business networking meetings.
Intent
Define what kind of group you intend to create. Is it business people in the same industry or a variety of unrelated industries? Is it a group of business owners? Or are they marketing managers? Salespeople, perhaps?
Frequency
Also, specify how often you want to meet with your group. Monthly? Every Tuesday?
Purpose
Then, identify the purpose. All leads groups have a common purpose: building meaningful relationships.
Write the purpose and edit it until it is completely clear to everybody.
Invite
Go beyond Internet invites and meet new people near you. Introduce yourself to the people in your neighborhood or during someone else’s lecture and extend your invitation: “Hi. Know what? I’m organizing a Leads Group among (salespeople / computer geeks / teachers…); we’ll get together for lunch next Tuesday at (place). Join us. The first time, you’ll be our guest”.
Ask for confirmation
Ask your group members to confirm their presence at least one or two days before the meeting. If you have a list of more than a dozen people, make necessary arrangements with the owners of the restaurant / cafeteria.
Snacks, everybody
Make a warm and exciting first meeting. Have lunch/snacks first, and then do business.
By the time first encounter takes place, you’ll already know everybody else, at least by name or username and photograph; but the others won’t.
To alleviate the awkwardness of the situation, introduce them or let them introduce themselves. Better yet, play a game. For instance, throw a small ball to someone in front of you and say his name and his field of interest. He, then, does the same with another member.
Explain the mechanics
Usually, you do not sell each other; rather everyone delivers a short speech and makes it clear to the other participants the ideal profile of a lead. After the meeting, members return to their habitual activities; and, when they come across potential customers for a particular member, they refer them to him or her.
Create a feeling of belonging
Assign simple duties to some members for the next meeting: a short speech / reading of no more than two minutes to set everybody in the mood, another game, collecting a small fee for activities, finding a more suitable place, etc.
Close the meeting
Thank everybody for coming and remind them to stay in touch until the next meeting and to start referring leads to the other members.
From time to time, you may all agree to add variety to your business networking meetings. Make some meetings formal, in the habitual meeting place; organize others in a more relaxed or informal way; or don’t organize anything at all, make it a “just hanging out” night with your lead group.
That’s all. Easy, isn’t it?
If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.meetingwave.com as the original source).
Author Resource:
Jonathan Boyd has written countless articles for Meeting Wave, a free website to meet people offline, for social or business networking. Check out the MW blog at http://www.meetingwave.com/blog
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