Networking ideas for innovative rogues & freelancers
You’re a charismatic freelancer or a company rep at a networking event. Amongst the general chit-chat, you get a sense that the person you’re talking to could benefit from your services. So, you launch into an inspired spiel about how their business and/or lives would be transformed by the work you do. How their life will be all rainbows and sunshine after they engage your services. You hand over your fancy business card, mouth the words “call me” with raised eyebrows, a dramatic nod and a hand gesture that resembles a phone. They nod politely and smile at you. And then nothing happens.
Here’s why...
You’re just an optional expense. And they’re busy.
If you want to move your prospects from the land of “that sounds interesting” to “zomfg this is an essential investment – I need this now!” you’ll need to stop doing two things: talking about yourself, and talking about what they can gain from your business/products/ideas.
It’s counter-intuitive, I know, but once you’re into the conversation, you’ll want to do the exact opposite – listen to them, and focus on their pain. Find out what’s going on in their world – what their current problems are, what things they’re frustrated by, and what’s holding them back.
Stay with the problem.
After first hearing about a problem, most people jump to solutions too early, which does three things. For starters, it simplifies and dismisses the real issues your prospect has. Secondly, you’ll come across as someone who is self-centred and only looking to sell (“ok enough about you, let’s talk about me and how awesome my stuff is”). And most importantly, both you and they don’t even know if what you’re going to offer is even relevant yet.
Before switching to solution-mode, you’ll need to get all diagnostic on them first. Play the role of a doctor. Find out where it hurts and what’s causing the pain before prescribing them an antidote.
Extrapolate the implications.
And, just like a doctor, make sure that they’re clear on the implications of doing nothing. Wake them up to the urgency of the situation.
Imagine you’re a freelance web designer, and you overhear someone grumbling about how they can’t make even the slightest change to their content without their ‘webmaster’ charging them for it. Here, you’ll want prospects considering how much that’d cost them over time – in direct fees and the cost of missed opportunities – before presenting them with a solution.
Or imagine you’re a consultant specialising in generation Y. You overhear someone talking about high turnover in their younger staff – the same approach applies. If you’ve paced out the implications, they’ll probably be interested in hearing how you can help them.
Open the possibilities.
If your intention is clearly set on providing value, you’re now in a good place. At this stage, you can point people to resources, connect them with other service providers you know, or even explore the possibility of working with them. If they’re open to this idea, now’s your chance to do what you’ve been itching to do – the business card exchange.
Offer a clear next step.
Don’t just leave it at the business card swap. If you’re looking to seriously maximise this opportunity, you’ll want to set a clear next step – a call to action. This is particularly important if you’re at a big networking event, where everyone will likely end up inundated with business cards.
Now, if you get their card, you can make a little note on it to follow up with them. But it’d be so much better if they get in touch with you first.
For that to happen, your conversation and business card will need to stand out from the crowd.
The good news is that this is easy, because almost everyone talks about themselves, and almost every business card is a bland piece of paper with no conversion-power whatsoever. The information highwayman makes a great case about business cards, arguing that we need to see them as a form of advertising (rather than just a way to provide contact details).
If you’re in the visual arts, photography or design field, it makes sense for you to have a visually flashy picture or design on your card. But if you’re in the business world, it’ll be the words on your card that matter.
Recently, I discovered Moo – a seriously gorgeous print company that specialise in custom business card designs. They have a system that’ll let you print a different image on every card, which is fantastic for photographers and designers... and consultants too.
You can take advantage of this by creating different ‘hooks’ on the back of each card, related to the problems you solve and backed up with a clear call to action. Rather than sprouting generic, solution-based value propositions like “we empower people to reach their potential!” or “creating winning teams” you can tap onto the very problems your market struggles with.
This approach can enhance the relevancy of your business cards and boost you call to action – increasing the chance that you’ll get the call, have that meeting, and make clever happen.
Remember: no pain, no gain.
Pitching 
Reader Comments (1)
Excellent article Jason. There are a lot of business owners who could benefit from reading this article and using your advice to rethink the "where to from here?"
Cheers,
Andrew