I am no Gareth Southgate

I am no Gareth Southgate but there are similarities!

We have watched Gareth over the last few weeks create a team which at the time of writing have reached the semi finals of the Euros. We have seen him tinker with the team, bring in some players and drop one or two and despite the criticism we have reached the last four in the tournament and who knows where we may go from here?

The manager has realised that like networking it is all about playing the long game, matching the right players (attendees) and there are no quick wins just like in networking, results take time and hard work.

Initially its about the training. Who rehearses and practices what they are going to say and how they are going to introduce themselves? Who makes adjustments to their pitch depending on the type of networking event and the other attendees?

These can all be ironed out in your own training sessions prior to the event. The more you train the more natural you will appear and when it comes to standing up and speaking don’t read memorise what you are going to say. After all the players don’t just rock up at the end of extra time and kick penalties for fun, they rehearse, they know their opponents. They are fully prepared.

Kit is also important after all first impressions are instant you want attendees to accept that you are an expert in your field so if you are in software definitely don’t wear a shirt and tie they will never believe you!

The team bus should get you there on time, be early if you don’t want to walk into a room full of potential strangers if you are there first people will gravitate to you.

And finally the manager, well as the host of a sit down lunch event it is my job to make sure that everyone sits at the table best suited to you. Every meeting we will have at least half a dozen or more people come up and say “that was a great table”.

There is a reason for that as we chose who you sit with, we make sure you don’t sit with the same person month after month, the different industry sectors are there to assist and not to compete and of course we will look at the personalities to make sure that the conversation will flow.

And of course each table has a goal keeper or as we call them a host, a safe pair of hands to make sure that no one hogs the conversation, the distribution is equal and everyone has the opportunity to land their pitch in the back of the net!

We love it when members of The Business Network tell us about work they have won which has been passed on by a fellow member and that is when we know it really is “COMING HOME”