How can you improve your team's networking skills?
Networking is not just about exchanging business cards or adding contacts on LinkedIn. It is a valuable skill that can help you and your team build relationships, generate leads, and learn from others in your industry. However, networking can also be challenging, especially if you are not confident, comfortable, or prepared. In this article, you will learn how to improve your team's networking skills with some practical tips and strategies.
Before you can improve your team's networking skills, you need to understand where they stand. To evaluate their abilities and preferences, you can use a self-assessment tool or a feedback survey. Consider asking questions such as how often they network, what their goals and challenges are, how they approach and follow up with new contacts, how they leverage their existing network, and how they measure and improve their networking results. By evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your team, you can identify the areas that need improvement and customize your training and coaching accordingly.
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Nobody is born for networking: Networking is not a regular human activity and no person is born with the skills it requires in the professional world. While that is true, there are few people who are good at opening and holding conversations with strangers compared to others. Everyone has their own style that they're comfortable with. As a first step in the networking process, it is important to assess your team's skill level and style that comes to them naturally. People who can open conversations might need help with making them meaningful. People who fear approaching strangers might need help with specific questions they can use as an an opener. Understand your team and work with it.
Networking is a skill that can be learned and improved with practice and guidance. You can provide your team with training and coaching on various aspects of networking, from crafting an effective elevator pitch and introducing yourself to researching potential contacts and events, initiating conversations, asking relevant questions, exchanging value and offering help, following up, and staying in touch. You can use different methods to deliver your training and coaching, such as online courses, webinars, workshops, role-plays, simulations, mentoring or even inviting guest speakers or experts to share their networking insights and experiences with your team.
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Elevating your team's networking skills is pivotal for professional growth. Implement targeted training and coaching programs to refine interpersonal connections. Begin with interactive workshops, offering insights on effective communication, relationship building, and cultivating a strong professional network. Provide real-world scenarios and encourage role-playing to enhance practical skills. Personalized coaching sessions can address individual challenges and offer tailored strategies for improvement.
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Role-play networking: Even though a role-play with colleagues within the sales department is an artificial setting, it can be turned into a useful activity. To make it useful, record these sessions with a few basic cameras. Watching replays of trying to have a conversation with others, is an eye-opening experience. It also helps point clear areas for improvement.
Networking can be daunting and time-consuming for some people, so it's important to motivate and incentivize your team to network regularly and effectively. To do this, set clear and realistic networking goals and expectations, create a supportive and collaborative networking culture, recognize and celebrate your team's achievements, provide feedback and suggestions for improvement, and offer rewards and recognition for networking efforts and outcomes. Additionally, you can encourage networking activities by creating opportunities for your team to network internally and externally such as organizing or attending networking events, joining or creating networking groups or platforms, introducing or connecting team members to your network or other relevant contacts, and sharing or requesting referrals, leads, or testimonials.
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In networking, reps really matter: The more you try and repeat this artificial human activity called 'networking' the better you become. Doing it well, doesn't come naturally to any person. For some it is very difficult while others might be comfortable but not effective. To improve, the number of times you try to participate in networking activity really matters. Reflecting after each session on what you did well and areas of improvement leads to improvement. If you are a sales leader and 'networking' is an important contributor to your team's success, you should incentive the process. Because every team member of yours, will need the reps to get good at it.
Networking is an ongoing process that requires consistent and strategic action; therefore, you need to monitor and measure your team's networking results to ensure they are achieving their goals and providing value for your business. This can be done by tracking and analyzing your team's networking activities, such as the number, frequency, and quality of contacts, events, or referrals. Additionally, you should evaluate and quantify your team's networking outcomes, such as the number, value, and conversion of leads, opportunities, or sales. You should also compare and benchmark your team's networking performance against your competitors or industry standards. Finally, review and adjust your team's networking strategy based on results and feedback. By monitoring and measuring your team's networking results, you can identify what works and what doesn't to optimize their efforts and impact.
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Measure and Reflect: Measurements in terms of how many people you met, how many pitches you mentioned and how many leads you created is important. These are output metrics. Reflection in terms of how you approached people, what were the questions that lit up their eyes, how did you craft your pitch that got them nodding, is equally important. These are input metrics. As a leader, you need to measure both and get your team to discuss which input elements are leading to desirable output results. There is no point in repeating the process endlessly unless you're seeing improvement with time. Therefore, reflecting and finding the best methods that give results, is what you need to find. Takes time, but worth the effort.
Networking is not just a skill but a mindset that can help you and your team succeed in sales. To develop this mindset, you must embrace the principles that networking is about building relationships, not transactions; giving, not taking; quality, not quantity; learning, not selling; and long-term, not short-term. With these principles in mind, you and your team can network with confidence, authenticity, and purpose to create lasting and mutually beneficial connections with prospects, customers, and partners.
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