The Power of Networking

You wouldn’t show up to your friends birthday without a birthday card, right? Attending a networking event prepared will leave a great impression on others. Just think of how you can set yourself up to be successful during an event. When I was president of the Honor Society chapter in Texas, I created business cards specifically for this reason. I believe it helps you in the long run, whether you own a business or not. You can list your specialties on the card along with your contact information. Word of mouth is the most powerful and effective tool used in businesses and organizations today. I encouraged the members in my chapter to ask their peers or someone they are inspired by to come speak on campus. As a president, you need to understand that this step is critically important with your school.

Once you find the guest spokesperson, next step is to reserve your room and market campaign your flyers for that event. I suggested networking apps such as Shapr, because attending mixers is great and just putting yourself out there is the key. Everyone is looking for something different in their organization, you will make an amazing candidate if you just strive to do your best. One area I encourage people to look at regarding guest speakers are community advocates and influencers on social media. Entrepreneurs are on the rise in 2019-2020 making passive income. I found there are a lot of markets in different fields where people are offering web seminars, coming into town as the city guest speaker, etc.

Don’t be nervous about receiving “no” as an answer, just move on to the next person or organization. My confidence is that someone will tell you yes! I found a nice guy on app Shapr who is a photographer building his showcase. I reached out to him to express interest in building a portfolio for myself. We met for a briefing one day then the rest is history on tradework. Where he is building his reputation as a professional photographer, I would love to get into modeling, eventually. We traded our times for portfolios which includes great, professional pictures. He found community events that needed help with models and we took an interest in those as well. It’s fun to meet new people, and building that working professional relationship can help market yourself later on. Professionals will see that you work hard, have creative ideas and ambitious about goals in life, and will want to help you get there.