How to Make Time for Networking

by Byron Woodson II

You're busy already. You have a job, a semblance of a social life, family, maybe even some community service commitments. How in the world do you 'network' when your schedule is already packed?

The question is not really 'how do you network', or 'how do you network more'. The question is 'how do you network more effectively'?

The answer is overlap.

Have you heard of a 'business lunch'? Two birds: food and clients, one stone: lunch. One sure way to kill or maim more fowl with one stone is to host a lunch or after-work networking party. This does not have to be a big extravaganza.

The important thing to do is to invite a few of the people you'd really like to see to go to lunch, dinner or whatever occasion. Though you might want more one-on-one time with one or two of them, having four or five friends, associates, clients or business partners all around the same table will create a more lively conversation and atmosphre. Being able to see multiple people will give you enough face-time to reconnect with each one, and it will introduce people you talk to frequently to the people you talk about frequently (and vice versa).

Inviting people to these small intimate events on a regular basis will do wonders for social networking, professional networking, business networking or any other kind of networking you're into. If you invite family and friends to where your business associates will be, make sure it is after business hours, and maybe on the weekend.

So how many should you invite?
Inviting ten or fifteen people will net about five or six people to your event. It's been my experience that about a fourth of the people say they're coming, three fourths of them actually show up, and a quarter of the people that show up bring a friend.

Here's the math: 100 invites -> 25 confirmed -> 15 show + four friends = 20 people

So how could you manage this?

FACEBOOK! I never thought I'd say this, simply because 'all the rave' is social networking, Facebook and all of that is overhyped. However, Facebook has a unique feature that lets you organize events easily and quickly. Facebook allows you to create events that you can invite people to publicly or privately, you can allow them to invite friends, or have people request invitations. It's a pretty flexible medium to quickly invite and organize a couple hundred of your closest friends. I like Facebook because it's faster and easier than calling and emailing the same number of people.

Now, if you're not on Facebook I have two things to say. the first one is: I understand. The second is: get on it anyway. Hey, don't check it for weeks at a time. Fine by me. But if you want to 'network' then there is literally no better medium to reconnect with all the people you wanted to keep in contact with, and a few of those that you don't.

*while you're at it, tune up the way you introduce people
*you can also see how this is better than traditional networking