Get Your Sellers to Answer These 3 Questions Before Every Networking Event

Networking events, particularly in the summer and towards the end of the calendar year are put forward by our sellers as “great opportunities” to fill up the funnel and ways to make new connections. 

That can be true however; often those networking events become not-working events and the expenses that we end up approving for our sellers don’t provide much of a return. 

Whenever one of my sellers would ask to attend a networking event, whether it was free or if there was an expense attached to it, I asked them to write down answers to these three questions as part of their request to go to the event. 

1. How many unique conversations will I have at this event? – We’re looking for an answer that is bigger than zero and, ideally, bigger than one 😊 
   Too often our sellers go to networking events and  have great conversations with individuals who will always talk to our seller, but will never grant them a meeting much less buy from them, yet our sellers count those conversations as prospecting.
   A unique conversation means that it’s a first time chat when prospecting  or  when speaking about a particular product. That means if one of our seller’s sees a client at a networking event and the client says, “hey great to see you! I was wondering if we could have a conversation about .. (product client is not currently buying)," that's a unique conversation!
2. How many second calls will I have in my calendar before I leave? –  A networking event is not a selling event. It is a prospecting opportunity. All we want our sellers to do when prospecting is to get an appointment on their calendar. When our sellers are at a networking event having a unique conversation and the person, they're speaking with seems really engaged in the conversation what we want our sellers to say is “this probably isn't the right venue for us to really determine if we're a good fit to work together. What if we got out our phones right now and booked a 15-minute phone call in the next week or so to carry on this conversation. What do you think about that?" A real prospect who's really engaged and genuinely wants to have a business conversation with one of our sellers will say, “yeah that sounds good let's get on our phones.” By asking our sellers to set the goal of second calls we increase their chances of putting real, qualified opportunities in their funnel. 
3. How many introductions am I going to ask for at this event? – This number out of the three questions will probably be the smallest number because we don't want our sellers to go out and damage the rapport with people, they meet at the networking event by coming off as a pushy, aggressive, self-centered seller. Yet we do want them to ask who else would you suggest I talk to at this event? To expand the number of potential qualified buyers they can engage with. As one of my friends says, “they can't think it, they’ve got to ink it.” It's not good enough for one of our sellers to verbally set goals because there’s no accountability. We want them to write it down because when they write it down it becomes real, and then we can have an accountable conversation after the networking event. If my seller doesn't necessarily hit all their goals, they want a coaching opportunity not a “gotcha” moment. As long as they're getting better than zero, they're creating momentum.

For example, let's say a seller’s goal was five unique conversations at a networking event and they end up with two. That’s less than 50% and it's still two more than they might have had, had they not actually had the goal in mind. 

We want to celebrate and encourage our sellers while still holding them accountable to reaching their goals. This is not permission for our sellers to not hit their goals however, it is a coaching opportunity. Maybe they set their goals too high. Maybe five was unrealistic maybe three unique conversations would have been a better number for them. 

Unfortunately, we've not really going to know that, especially at a brand-new networking event, until after the fact. Once we collect real data, we can make informed decisions about which networking events are worth our sellers’ time.

Until next time… go lead.