Last week I met the most amazing person. His name is Chris Van Buiten and he serves as Vice President of Innovation at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. I had invited Chris to join me and his Sikorsky engineering colleagues for an informal lunch ‘n lead discussion on Day #1 of a 2-day presentation skills workshop for [read more]

The other day I had lunch with a networking friend, Pamela Horton, and we discussed the value of having referral partners to build new business. Pamela is a marketing maven who works for Arbella/Bearingstar Insurance. She has brought significant new business to her company by leveraging her network to bring greater value and more resources [read more]

You can spend a lot of money networking. Many of the networking events you’ll want to attend will cost money. Joining groups and associations cost money (sometimes hundreds). There’s conference fees and travel costs – necessary expenses if you want to be at the places where your prospects and clients gather. Non-profit charity events are [read more]

The most successful networkers that I know are great listeners, not just great talkers. They know how to ask good questions and to engage other people in conversation. They are able to be fully present in the conversation, but also able to take mental note of the important information that the other person is sharing. [read more]

Last week I told you about the cool people I met while on jury duty. I wasn’t actually selected for Jury Duty, but had to spend the entire day waiting to be interviewed. I used my time wisely while in the “jury pool” and met new people and had interesting conversations. That’s networking! One of [read more]

Think about how you answer your phone on the job. Does it sound like you are at home ? Do you know if the call is an internal person or an external caller? Perhaps it’s a hot prospect calling you ready to buy? How you answer the phone creates a very important impression with your [read more]

Have you ever considered your networking ability to part of your leadership strength? If you believe that networking is all about relationship building, then you might see my point of view. Networking skills are part of the growth and development of any leader. All leaders must gain the follow-ship of people in order to be [read more]

Are you married? What does your partner do for a living? Does this seem like an appropriate question to ask a networking contact or is it too personal? I’m going to suggest that you begin to ask about people’s personal lives when you network. One of the goals of networking is to grow your sphere [read more]