Networking in business travel is simply connecting with a variety of individuals for the sole purpose of expanding your social and professional circle. Networking is very instrumental in the growth of every individual, business, or organisation. It is essential to succeed, climbing up the ladder in your career or business and meeting people in the same place you aspire to be. Everybody needs to network, but how to network differs depending on the niche you find yourself in and your location.
You don’t have to do much for individuals who want to meet people to create a social network. You often connect with people of the same interest because you probably find them at seminars or social gatherings. So for a regular social meeting, you can network and connect by exchanging contacts, exchanging complementary cards, or just getting any information that you can use to connect.
This order of networking isn’t the same for business travel. It’s about creating a great professional environment for your company, so you must ensure that it is formal and value-driven. You must make a first impression to help secure new connections during your trip. It will help if you put a few things in place that you should note when connecting with people in a professional setting during business trips.
To build great connections through networking during business trips, here are the ivory things you should do and take note of:
In this article, we'll take a look at:
Meeting other people in your industry is one of the essential advantages of networking. Furthermore, these people in similar positions to you – or a job you want to get – have valuable industry knowledge. They can inspire and motivate you, as well as connect you with other valuable people who may be able to share their knowledge or provide you with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now you need to know the types of events that you have to go for as an organisation.
The events you should attend depend on your niche and your organization’s needs. So, for example, a digital marketing agency should have events centred around the importance, scope, and future of digital marketing in the world. You will meet top people in the field, other influencers, and clients you can work with at those events. As an organization, the events you should go for must be related to what you do.
Social media is a social environment to connect with people. You can connect professionally with people in your niche using LinkedIn and other social media platforms. With LinkedIn, you can see top people in your niche or people you would like to help with information that would visibly move your organization forward.
On LinkedIn, you’ll find links to webinars and related forums in your niche, and you can network with people even before you get to see them physically at events, as stated in the first point. Connecting online also helps you to keep tabs on the people you have associated with from an event.
Just imagine you met Elon musk at an event, and you’re supposed to tell him about your organization in two minutes; how will you organise your thoughts and come up with something stellar in that short time? So you need to have a subtle business pitch that you can give when you eventually connect with the people you meet at events or maybe online. You should be able to present yourself with so much value in a short message. Make the pitch ready while preparing for any business trip, and ensure that your employees are conversant.
You can’t just believe that the new connections you made would always have you in mind and call on you when they have opportunities for you. That isn’t possible because they have a lot of things running through their mind, so remembering that they had a conversation with you or maybe what you do can’t be guaranteed.
So you have to follow up. Ensure you get a means of contacting them, such as an email, during your physical interaction. You can seal the newly made connection by sending a mail that includes something you both talked about during the event or maybe anything you have realized in your niche that you thought you should share.
Co-working is a new way to network that allows you to grow your business in an engaging, exciting, and inspiring environment surrounded by like-minded people. There is nothing else like it; while being online is great, you can’t form the same relationships as you can when working side by side with real people. So try to find co-working spaces that people in your niche go to often so you can also go there and use the opportunity to meet and connect with those people.
Social skills, also known as interpersonal skills, are used to interact and communicate with others. These abilities include both verbal (how you communicate with others) and nonverbal (how you interact with others) (your body language, gestures, and eye contact). You must ensure that you and your employees comport and speak very well. Having a good hold of these social skills influences your interaction with the people you want to connect with. Work on how to speak formally correctly and when to give gestures in a public environment.
Meals are excellent networking opportunities. Make an effort always to eat a meal with someone. If you aren’t with an existing contact, use lunch and dinner to meet someone new. Your best bet is to plan ahead of time and look for connections or events that will allow you to network. You can go through sites, like meetup.com or local forums.
This opportunistic approach can also produce unexpected results. So you can offer to talk over lunch or dinner. You can talk about things happening in your industry globally or maybe some projects your organization has handled recently.
We can help you plan your next business trip to somewhere incredible or for an event related to your niche so that you can begin building or continue growing your worldwide network! Book a demo or sign up for a free trial on TruTrip.
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