How will you make the most of the next networking event you attend?

The more you go out to meet people and engage in conversation, the more you will naturally network. It won’t seem so challenging and awkward.

It’s not just about collecting a business card. It’s truly about Communicating, Connecting and Collaborating with others. It’s about building relationships. It’s about listening to others. When coaching and consulting clients, these three key pillars of networking are often addressed.

As coaches and consultants, we ask our clients a lot of questions that will lead them into achieving their goals. When they are trying to build a business, a political platform, enhance a career, become thought-leaders, promote a service or product or enhance an organization, answering specific questions will help them create a strategy for networking.

Communicating

Who are you communicating with that will expand your circle of future collaborators?

How well are you listening to the people you meet to learn new things about them?

What questions are you asking?

Connecting

What events are you attending?

Who else might be attending that you want to meet?

How many networking events do you attend in a year?

Collaborating

How are you following up with people you meet after the event?

What ways could you collaborate with the people you meet?

How might you be of service to the people you meet and how might they help you?

Coming up this Monday is the Annual Western Wayne Conference. This is one of the leading networking events in Southeast Michigan.  Denha Media Group founder Vanessa Denha Garmo will be Communicating, Connecting and Collaborating at the Event. She is not only attending as a Livonia Chamber Board member but will be attending with a current client.  She will be working with WWJ AM 950 helping with guests to interview during their LIVE broadcast. She will for sure be working to meet new people who she might be able to work with and collaborate with in the future.

“This event has evolved into the premier collaboration event for the Western Wayne County communities. The larger scope and profile of this program gives attendees a chance to meet a collection of people they would never get to meet all in one venue. I like to equate this event for the caliber of networking to a mini-Mackinac Policy Conference for Western Wayne County.” – Dan West, president and CEO of the Livonia Chamber of Commerce.