Business card marketing and networking

Lesson Details:

Video Transcription: Any discussion of offline marketing starts with business cards and networking this video is brought to you by Appy Pie Academy because networking is not something you do at networking events or conferences it's something that happens 24/7 all the time and it's something that can give you real relationships possibly far beyond the lifetime of your business real relationships last and you just have to look at every where you are as a potential situation where networking elements might come into play even in social situations no matter what they might be they might carry some business networking elements so you always want to be professional friendly warm and start conversations even if you go through your day starting few or non conversations with random people you might want to get into the habit of that because you never know where that will end up and you always want to ask whether it's networking events or social events or you just meet people randomly ask them about them and and show real interest and find something specific to compliment and things start thinking of ways to help them maybe directly it may be indirectly maybe by introducing them to somebody else or some other thing not too aggressively because maybe they have an ask for help but just show active interest and goodwill if you do that eventually they'll ask about you and your business of course some people will never ask about new some people will always just talk about themselves themselves themselves nothing you can do about them but most people understand that at some point they need to ask about the other person and reciprocate that interest so you always want to carry your business cards with you or today there's many business card mobile apps but the idea is that you want to be able to exchange information quickly if it's necessary and of course when you give your card you want to ask for the other person's card and right after the conversation and again this can be on your mobile app on your phone but you can just jot down if you note especially if you're at a networking event you're gonna talk to 10-15 people that evening you might forget some people even though after the conversation you think I won't forget the next day you forget so you want to make a few notes oh this person has this business they're interested in such and such thing and they're having these challenges ok boom just the quick notes and then the next day those notes will remind you about a lot of the conversation and you can follow up the very next day usually if you get a business card follow up the very next day within 24 hours is usually great and during the conversation have an interesting conversation like what I mean by that is don't ask too many generic questions like everybody asks like what do you do where are you from blah blah blah ask interesting questions that they haven't that they don't get asked often and it will become more interesting for them to answer those questions and what you can do is try to ask questions designed to get positive answers like what's the favorite part about your job what inspired you to get into it questions like that lead to positive answers that are often things people are passionate about not always but often and that will add positivity to the conversation and it will improve the energy of the conversation and the report that you build and of course if you want to print business cards on vistaprint.com your first batch you can print for free I don't know if they always have that offer but at the mall at this moment they have that offer I don't have any kind of business relationship with them I just promote them because they're sort of like an industry standard they're not so great but they're not bad and if your first batch is free is good enough and they have a lot of templates and designs now let's talk a little bit about that body language during networking up to 80 percent of communication according to communication experts is nonverbal so it has to do with your posture your eye contact your body positioning your hands gestures you even your tone of voice even who laughs at whose jokes even though obviously that's verbal but still like things like that that's that's a power positioning and of course this is all culturally sensitive in different cultures have different set of social rules but in the Western society the suggestions our good rules of thumb so everything starts with eye contact and a smile if you start talking the first to a person without eye contact that's a little creepy so eye contact smile and that would be the beginning of things so let's keep going over more body language suggestions about your eye contact so looking down or away shows either low confidence or a sign that you're actually not telling the truth keep that in mind but too much eye contact is actually creepy if you know oh I can't look away I can't it is important so you start like making extra eye contact then you start being like kind of weird and unnatural and creepy so don't do that either just be careful and what you want to do is start with a good positive energy level that you bring to the conversation and actually build it up and up and up do it as you go you don't want to start too high because if they're just a regular energy level and you're too high it will seem a little weird and it will not make for a good conversation but you mimic them but as your conversation grows and you build rapport you can go up in energy as you both having an interesting conversation and that's that's actually a natural way to do that and it's a good thing to strive for and of course it's good interactions whether you're at a networking event or just socially will give you more confidence for your next interactions and conversely bad interactions if you're awkward that'll give you lower confidence and you'll have a harder time entering your next conversations so it actually builds so you wanna build up work up a good confidence level enter have a good conversation and actually your evening will positively hopefully snowball from there now let's talk a little bit about your appearance just the very basics you want to over a dress for any events approximately 10% personally I'm not a big fashion person but the idea is that you over dress just a tiny bit appearance matters and you'll always kind of appear calm more confident and appear as an individual that people want to network with and of course you want to take care of the basics haircut grooming shaving nails trimmed all those basically I shouldn't have to say that but those are the basics and when you enter conversations like I mentioned try to mimic the energy level and the body positioning of the other person because people like people who are like them and then work up because you know that the idea is to build rapport get to a good energy level so you kind of start where they are and just be a little more tiny bit more energy tiny bit more open and as you exchange points in the conversations in the conversation keep on raising the energy level because realize that you can direct conversation topics too like I mentioned earlier the more positive ones ask questions that elicit positive answers like if you complain about something that's not very good because the conversations naked the conversation becomes negative so you can manage the conversation topics because now you know what the goal is so you can naturally point the conversation in the way in the direction you want it to go so that's business card marketing it's everywhere all the time when you meet anyone ask about them show real interest and make it natural and of course when they ask you have your pitch ready and if the pitch resonates with them if they need with what you do for your business they'll they'll be more likely to engage.