Recently I attended a 3-day networking event and I’d like to share some insights gained from it.
The gist of the event was to have us decide on a tool we wanted to use to build our community, such as a summit, giveaway, podcast, or freebie/service swap, and then invite fellow attendees to participate so all would build their communities. We listened to some training on how to structure the events, and then we met in small groups to exchange contact info.
These are tried and true ways to build your list AND your network. I’ve done all but the podcasts and I can tell you that every time I’ve participated in one of these, I built my list.
In any of these you can go to network events and get contacts who have the same target market as yourself, and create a group that offers their freebie to all the participants’ lists. And your freebie offer is going out to the lists of all your participants too. Or you can do a freebie swap where you offer someone else’s freebie to your list and that person offers your freebie to their list. It’s a win/win.
Here’s how I started out doing my giveaways: I collected names of people who were in other giveaways and had products that I thought my list would appreciate. Then I contacted them and asked them if they wanted to be in my giveaway. I sent out about 60 invitations and got 30 participants.
Another insight I got from this event was how to get the most out of a situation that looks like a mistake. Here’s what happened:
First of all, the attendees were almost all coaches and none of them had my target market—they were my market! So, I was unsure of how I could benefit from the networking part of the event.
Oh, I listened to the trainings, took notes, and got some good tips for creating my own events. But during the small group sessions where you had to tell what you do, and what your offer was, I said I wanted to do a giveaway and a business resource summit but only a few of the attendees were interested.
By the second day of the networking event, after 5-6 small group sessions, I was feeling down about the whole situation. I decided to figure out how to benefit from this event anyway. And then realized that one thing I could offer these coaches was to help them connect to other coaches for their events. After all, I do have a list of over 4000 coaches, and a LinkedIn group of over 20,000.
So when we met in our little groups, I admitted that most of the participants didn’t have my target but I offered to connect them to other coaches for their giveaways and summits.
The leaders in the small groups were supposed to be encouraging the attendees to purchase the event host’s high ticket offer. So when the leader of my group said that my offer was a generous one and that coaches listening should think about having me as their next coach, it came as a delightful and unexpected surprise.
It reminded me of the concept that we all have something to offer. And when we partake in an activity that we hope will benefit us and don’t see a way that it can, finding something that would benefit others is like “paying it forward.” It creates more openness in others to give back to you in the future.
In the end, I was glad that I attended the networking event. I learned a lot, met some new people, and I have a list of potential networking partners for other coaches.
So the next time you engage in an activity (like a networking event) that you think was a mistake and you won’t get anything out of, take another look at how you can benefit others, or turn it around so you can be glad you did it after all.
Would you like to be in someone else’s giveaway or summit? Pop your name, email, phone, and freebie offer on this sheet and I will share it with people I met who are looking for life coaches to participate in their giveaways and summits. Here’s the link: https://iaplifecoaches.org/participate
