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Networking is an important skill in business and if you’re going to get ahead, you need to attend lots of events and meet influential people in your industry. As well as attending events, you should consider hosting one of your own. This is a good strategy for new business owners that want to establish themselves as a serious business figure in their industry and make their business appear more legitimate. But putting on a networking event is a lot harder than people realize and if you don’t get the details right, you will struggle to get people to attend any more of your events in the future. If you think that hosting a networking event could benefit your business, here are a few important tips.
Choose The Right Venue
Picking the venue is step one and you need to find somewhere that is large enough to accommodate everybody without spending too much money. That can be tough but the best place to look is usually hotels. If they have a bar attached to the space, they will often allow you to use it for free as long as you can convince them that you will fill it. You also need to consider the location and find somewhere central that is easy to get to because people won’t want to travel too far to get there, especially if it’s the first event that you have put on.
Invest In The Food And Drink
You want people to stick around at your event, which means you need to feed them. People don’t always think that food is important but it really is. If you put on a good spread, people will be impressed and they’ll want to stay for longer. They’ll also be more likely to recommend the event to friends and come back again next time you host one.
Give Out Good Gifts
You always get a lot of free gifts at networking events and it’s a great opportunity for you to get your company logo out there. But people have been to countless networking events that are handing out mugs and pens and they don’t want that stuff anymore. You need to come up with something more inventive that will stick in people’s minds. For example, fortune cookies or sweets are a great giveaway idea for these events because people will actually enjoy them, rather than throwing them in the bin right away. You should also spend a bit more money on useful items like headphones or laptop cases that people will actually keep and use.
Advertise On Social Media
When you’re trying to get people to attend the event, you need to market it on social media and build a buzz around it. You should also post regularly during the event so that the people who decided not to come can see what they’re missing out on. Showing everybody how successful the event is will help you to get more people through the door next time around.
If your networking event is a success, you can build business relationships that will help you to thrive in the future and show everybody that you are a leading figure in your industry.
