Make Sure You Are Remembered

I attended a speed networking and Business Lunch on Friday. When I got back I took out the business cards I had collected and sat down to complete the process by writing an individual e-mail to each of the people I met. The start of this activity was to sift through the business cards and place them in two piles. The firs, larger pile consisted of those people that I had met and could easily remember. These people I could write to and be confident that I was sending them a relevant personal message relating to something they told me about themselves or their business, or some talking point that we covered, perhaps a shared interest or opinion.

The second small pile was made up of cards where I had to think twice before I could remember anything significant. There are many possible reasons for this, not the least of which is that I may not have been fully switched on when I spoke to them; speed-networking is after all pretty tiring as I have said in a previous post.

This goes to show that it is important to be remembered. I found this article on About.com which give 5 rules for being memorable. These can be summed as

1. Have a distinctive appearance such as an attractive hand painted tie.
2. Engage with and be totally aware of the people you are meeting.
3. Ask Thought provoking questions that enable people to talk about themselves.
4. Reinforce key words about your business, be brief and to the point.
5. Contribute to but do not hog group conversations.

Now if you are like me you will look at Number 1 and think " Hand painted tie?- What's so important about that?" Big mistake. Different things push different people's buttons and whilst I might not normally pay attention to how I dress, there are some people for whom my appearance will outweigh any impact I make when asking questions.

Little check lists like this are useful in identifying where you can polish your presentational skills. My advice would be to take a list like this and number them importance from 1 to 5. There's a good chance that number 5 on your list will be one area where you are not performing to your potential. It won't ruin your networking experience but it might just put a small barrier between you and one potential colleague who has slightly different priorities to you, and who could do you a lot of good.