WEB INSIGHTS
Holidays Good Time to Network

By Marc Kramer
"Web Sight"
marc@kramercommunications.com

It’s hard for me to believe that my book "Power Networking" published by NTC Publishing has been out since this time six years ago and what is even more amazing to me is that the book still sells, organizations still ask me to speak about networking and that networking is probably more important now than it has been since I wrote the book because of the current economic climate.

We are now entering the height of the networking season. All of the holiday parties are coming up and now is a great time gear up to make contacts for new business opportunities. During this time of the year, I try to make an appearance at every event that I am invited to because I know after December 20th, there won’t be any significant networking opportunities for about a month.

To get yourself ready for the networking battle, make sure you do the following:

• First, make sure you have at least 1,000 business cards ready to go.
• Second, make sure your business cards have you’re the proper spelling of your name, your telephone and e-mail address. I didn’t mention mailing address because any important communication can be done by telephone, fax or e-mail. I can’t believe how many people neglect to put their e-mail addresses on their business cards. I get 20 times the number of e-mails as I do business cards.
• Third, put cards in your suit, sport coat, purses, wallets and brief cases. I also stick cards in my glove compartment in case I run out and I need more. I always make sure I have 100 cards in my car at all times.

Once you have put your cards into all of the appropriate places, put together a spreadsheet with all of the events and parties you want to hit. If there are two events in the same night and you can’t get to both, choose the one that will yield the best results. The following are my rules for networking.

• Don’t spend more than five minutes with any one person.
• Don’t let anyone monopolize your time.
• If someone tries to monopolize your time tell them you don’t want to prohibit them from meeting others and if they still won’t allow you a graceful exit, then introduce them to someone else.

Over the course of the holidays you will make a lot of contacts if you follow my suggestions and rules. Now you need to capitalize on them. Enter your contacts into one of three databases:

Microsoft Office - This software package has a program called Outlook. Outlook allows you to send and receive e-mail. One of its best features is a database for storing names. I personally use Outlook, because I can download the information onto my Palm Pilot. Also I like having my information in one software package.

Sharkware - Envelope king and best selling author Harvey MacKay developed Sharkware. A good program for keeping track of your contacts. You can go into a contact and see what you wrote or e-mailed to particular contact.

Act 2003 - Symantec, the developer of Norton Utilities, developed this contact database solution. This is the most robust package on the market. The primary use for this product is for sales forces. Finally, you can download information into your Palm Pilot.

After you have loaded your contacts into your database, send everyone a short two or three paragraph e-mail. Start out by mentioning where you met them, what you do or would like to do and see if they would like to get together. Don’t be lazy, you have from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve to rest. Make this season count so 2003 gets off to a roaring start.