It Takes All Sorts

On an earlier post this week I wrote about 5 ways to make an impression and suggested that we tend to accentuate those traits that play to our strengths. Sometimes we miss out on making a favourable impression by not paying attention to things that others may see as important.

This week I learnt that lesson in spades. I have called a potential BforB member several times and e-mailed a link to our website, so I turned up for our agreed one to one.

Turned out my contact was not there and another staff member greeted me and ushered me into the meeting room. Whilst the meeting was all times polite, friendly and courteous it was clear from the beginning that my colleague's expectation of the meeting and mine were different. The meeting room was set up for a formal presentation, a sales pitch. I was asked about the literature had brought and if I wanted to begin a PowerPoint presentation.

Usually when I have a one to one with a colleague it is simply a one-to-one, a conversation. This was not what had been expected and so I fell short. I was vey fortunate becuase as I say the meeting was cordial, but clearly the mismatch in expectations meant that neither party go what they had expected out of it.

So the lesson for me was be prepared for all eventualities, make sure that when following up on a networking contact that any one-to-one that is planned has an agreed "agenda". This may be no more formal than agreeing that you are just going to have a chat. It takes all sorts and all sorts of people have different expectations of a meeting. I'd forgotten that.

Member Spotlight: Insight Financial Management

Insight Financial management offer independent advice on mortgages , pensions, Insurance and investments. They are appointed representatives of Mint Financial Services.

Carl Wiles is a straight forward down to earth person who will always give calm professional objective advice on any financial matters. Carl's office is in Hedon which means he is well placed to serve clients from Hull, Holderness and the East Riding.

You can contact carl on 01482 409602 or e-mail him at carl@insightfm.co.uk. Better still come to Business for Breakfast's Wednesday meeting at the Perason Park Hotel, tomorrow at 6.45 am and introduce yourself

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.