The 60 second networking presentation – struggling? You’re not alone!

Whenever you are invited to a business networking or social business event, try to think about why you are going, how you are going to handle it and what you want to achieve. Whenever we are invited, we introduce ourselves as The Bridge, a specialist marketing company for healthcare, technology, and automotive sectors. Yet even that specific focus on marketing for professional services doesn't always make 60 seconds easy...

Networking events come in all shapes and sizes, from the very structured and formal referral driven events to the very casual and social. They are a chance to meet new people, say hi to people you have ongoing relationships with or to find out more about other local businesses. But whatever your motives, it's a chance to find a glimmer of interest with individuals to spur on new relationships, help you build your reputation and showcase your business.

The vast majority of networking events offer attendees a chance to talk to the whole group for a short time (usually 60 seconds, but sometimes 30 or 45 seconds) about their business.  It's a chance that every business owner or sales person should dream of, to have everyone in the room concentrating on you, your business and your needs. So why do we not take full advantage?

The problem is that most of us simply don't prepare or get too tense. We end up waffling about who-knows what. 

In the early days we used to stand up and talk about any amount of unspecific old rubbish to do with graphic design or marketing. Clearly we knew what The Bridge did but didn't say clearly how we could help clients, differentiate ourselves or didn't keep it focused.  

Now we are clearer, keeping it short and simple. We might say something specific about our work in law firm marketing or financial services marketing or just a general hint on high tech marketing but now we always stick to a single point.

Of course now that we're not spending the whole event soul searching for something clever to say, we have the confidence and decency to listen. It is our turn to notice that sometimes we hear exactly what people say but don't really know what they mean. Enivatably, if we don't understand what they do, we're simply not going to invest the time to get to know them.

Now that sounds harsh but let me explain. We are not there to sell, instead we're there to build relationships. How can we begin this process if we're still clueless about the other person's offering?  Clearly we can't so what we, and they, have done is missed a great opportunity to develop a mutually beneficial relationship.  

Fortunately, there is lots of fantastic networking advice on the web. The Bridge are based in Swindon, Wiltshire and there are three organisations in the Thames Valley area that seem to offer particularly good advice; NRG - nrg-networks.com, Ecademy - http://www.ecademy.com/ and Business Scene - business-scene.com

In June 2007 there was an article from Simon Emms, called The Connector, with advice on how to structure the perfect 60 seconds network presentation. We at The Bridge read it, practiced it, tried it and found it useful so began to use it as a base. As a company in marketing for professional services, we don't use it all of the time or stick rigidly to it but I recommend you take a look for yourself, just in case it's useful. You can still find it on business-scene.com from this link.

Alternatively get some of your networking colleagues to give you feedback. We are very lucky to have received some fantastically honest and sometimes critical feedback and advice, all of which has gone to fine tune our networking ability.

We now keep things simple, focusing on how we help our clients as a specialist marketing company. We also just tackle on subject at a time. Maybe professional services marketing one week maybe healthcare marketing the next.

The outcome has been more collaborative and beneficial relationships which has in turn benefited our bottom line. What is more, we now genuinely enjoy our networking time, and don't dread the 60 seconds!

Carl Wheatley, Managing Director
The Bridge Marketing Partners, professional services marketing.
Email me
0845 2581300