Networking Basics
Men battle and compete, women collaborate and join forces.

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Basic Networking Essentials

Montreal networking basics is about meeting new people, getting to know them and establishing new relationships and new partnerships. 

Being in business and building a strong business relationship are closely related. A business lunch is an essential part of our business development and a pleasant change from our daily routine. 

It is especially so if we chose the right restaurant, invited the right guest and sat at the right table. Then again, your business lunch could go wrong because you or your guest arrived late, showed bad manners, dressed too casually and was rude with the server. 

Focusing on the needs of our guest helps make a business lunch more productive and more enjoyable. 

Taking a customer or potential customer out for lunch is one way of bonding and of building a substantial and profitable business relationship. 

Have an idea of what you are going to discuss and accomplish. Are you going to tell him or her about your products and services, are you going to present a business proposal or are you simply going to get to know you client? Remember that questions pull and statements push.

Men battle and compete, women collaborate and join forces and both can be great business people. No superiority, no inferiority, only differences. So simple, yet so important. Fortunately, networking in business allows us to meet, to talk and to get to know each other. 

Montreal Networking Basics

A business lunch, an early morning breakfast, a mid-afternoon coffee offer great opportunities. Inviting a customer or a potential customer to a business lunch gives us an opportunity to learn about what kind of person he or she is and to discover what s/he likes or dislikes. 

A business lunch is one way of spending some time in pleasant company and of showing how much we care for our customers, our relationship and our business.

The first and easiest way to meet new prospects is to have someone introduce us to people and to potential customers. If we don't have that someone there are other ways.

We can, for example, take full advantage of business networking groups by participating and by using the various opportunities our business networks have to offer.

Being part of a large or not so large referral network gives us an occasion to promote our business and ourself during organized events and to profit from the advantages of networking in business. Networking organized events do give us an opportunity to improve our personal and professional skills, to expand our business network and to create visibility through participation and communication.

Networking in Business

Then again, having valuable information to provide to your prospect is one way of having a reason to stop by, to be of service, to get through him or her and to book a lunch date. 

For those of us who are audacious enough, showing up at an office with a mid-morning snack is another way of getting to meet a prospect. 

If he or she is out or at a meeting, you can always speak with the office staff, learn a few things and leave with at least a business card.

As an opening line for your conversation when you contact your prospect again, you could mention how well his or her office staff greeted you and looked after you and how pleased you were by the reception.

Quality, friendliness and confidentiality are still the key aspects of a sound relationship, business or otherwise. Networking in business brings mutual benefits. Done properly and in our right mind, networking creates business opportunities, brings new business home and increases our sales. 

Of course, we all take advantage of online business networking and of its efficiency when doing business but, if we wish to improve our business and to generate more sales we still need to create face-to-face meetings with the people we already know and with those we have not met yet.

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