Network everyday! You have the potential to hone your networking skills by talking to strangers in lines, in the elevator, practically anywhere. You never know who you might meet and what connections you might make.
Networking Tip of The Week – Don't Ignore Networking
Ignoring networking can lead you to waste a lot of time and energy. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use your network to make things happen easily. By networking you use the wisdom, skills and expertise of others, and bypass their mistakes. Networking is a way to enhance you opportunities and aid you in achieving your goals more efficiently.
Networking Tip of The Week – Business Card Etiquette
Business card etiquette. Whenever you give a business card, ask for a business card in return. When you receive a business card, don’t put it away immediately. Look at it. You’ll make the person feel respected and you might see something that could start a discussion.
Networking Tip Of The Week – Providing Value
The best way to network with people is to offer to help them with what they find important. Note that this is what THEY find important, not what YOU think they should find important! By expressing a willingness to help them, they’ll instantly have a reason to get back to you and allow you to get to know them better.
I spoke to the job networking group at Congregation Or Shalom in Vernon Hills regarding job search strategies
Networking Tip of The Week – Always Be Prepared
Be Prepared. Networking happens in unexpected places at unscheduled times. Always have your business cards with you!
Networking Tip Of The Week – Meetings
If possible meet with your contact in person, especially if you don’t already know each other. A face-to-face meeting goes a long way towards building a relationship.
Networking Tip of The Week – Sharing Referrals
Give referrals and make introductions within your network – especially between those who share a similar client base.
Are we connected on LinkedIn?
I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. Visit my profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/shalomklein
Warm Regards,
– Shalom Klein
The Best Networker I Know
Thanks, Jeff Segal, for the very kind blog post. See the original blog here.
Ask any startup founders how they met, and you’ll probably hear something along the lines of “Well, I knew a guy who’d worked with her, then we ran into each other at TechCocktail and she introduced me to …”
The startup community is networking nirvana.
Yet the best networker I know doesn’t run a startup. He works for a Skokie-based family accounting firm. But—in his spare time—he leads a networking group that’s grown from zero to more than 18,000 members in just two and a half years.
The group is Jewish B2B Networking, and its founder is a soft-spoken guy named Shalom Klein, who claims, “Really, I can only take credit for setting up the coffee and cake at our events.”
That’s a lot of coffee and cake. Jewish B2B hosts events nearly every week, in the city and suburbs, with anywhere from handfuls to hundreds of attendees. New postings pepper their job board daily, and they’re busy planning for their second annual business leaders’ trip to meet with administration officials and legislators in Washington.
And it all started from a single lunch. Klein explains, “I realized many of our clients, friends, and family needed to meet each other, so I planned a lunch at Slice of Life restaurant in Skokie. While I expected 20 people to attend, 75 people turned out. I walked into my neighborhood Starbucks the following day and saw three meetings going on from the day prior.”
A startup that grew so quickly from 75 users to 18,000 would probably be in line for some serious funding, but Jewish B2B is strictly a non-profit enterprise. Many of their events are free, and, in case you’re wondering, you don’t have to be Jewish to join.
“Business owners and job seekers—both Jewish and people from all faiths—are finding out about our resources, educational programs, and events, and are taking advantage,” says Klein. “Tens of thousands of business connections have been formed, and hundreds of jobs have been filled.”
Like most successful entrepreneurs, he makes it sound simple, even inevitable.
But building a network with the size and impact of Jewish B2B, in just two and a half years—in his spare time—makes Shalom Klein a networker extraordinaire.