Rolling Out attended the Insight Marketing “Women Making Moves” networking and empowerment gathering last night at Justin’s restaurant in Atlanta for an evening of bonding and networking amongst other female entrepreneurs.
Networking is crucial to stay ahead and advance in your business. There’s nothing more empowering than seeing women of color from all different areas of expertise join together to promote their businesses, offer their services, and more importantly support one another.
Everyone from real estate agents, attorneys, fashion and beauty bloggers, and motivationalspeakers were in attendance.
Keshia Walker Insight Marketing and guest
While networking can seem intimidating, here are four helpful tips to becoming a better networker.
1. The goal of networking should be to help other people. Yes, it would be nice if they helped you out as well, but networking is a two-way street. Your side of the street is about helping others, not asking them to help you. Asking for favors should only become a possibility once you have learned more about the person and provided some value to them.
2. You don’t need to know the most people, just the right people. There is no need to shotgun your business cards across the industry or send every single person an email. Instead, focus on finding people who are relevant to you. As time goes on, you can decide if the interests that you share with someone are worth pursuing further. It’s better to have five people who are willing to help you out than it is 500 that simply know your name.
3. Go beyond your industry. Connect with people on a variety of levels from a wide range of areas. By growing your network outside of the usual areas, you will be more valuable to people that are in your immediate industry. With a broad network, you can be the person that connects people across industries.
4. Make it a point to follow up. One or two days after meeting someone for the first time, follow up with a brief email or note. This is an opportunity to develop a relationship by bringing up a topic that you discussed before or making a comment on an interesting topic. Following up with relevant conversation helps to anchor your previous interaction in their mind and displays more personality than just sending a message that says, “Thanks for talking!”
