Opportunity Knocks

I received a call from the Executive Director of the Sherwood Park Chamber on Thursday.  

As a Past President, I sometimes will get calls for input, or to meet with the board or participate in County business with focus groups or occasional meetings.  This time, Todd's call was seeking some help with a "membership issue."  

For several years, attendance at the Breakfast Network has been growing.  The room is now full each Thursday and while that brings more opportunity and great value for members, the meetings have been running over time due to people's self-introductions taking too long.  Some members ramble on without a plan, some represent what they refer to as "multiple hats" and instead of just introducing themselves, they would talk about 2 or 3 things before sitting down and signalling the next person to stand up to say good morning.

I love the eagerness, but it doesn't make for a level playing field if we are going to finish the meeting on time, nor does it cast some members in a favourable light when it is the same people that do it every week.  Worse still -when people speak about themselves for 2 minutes, 3 minutes or in some cases, longer, the audience tends to tune them out -after all, most people attend the meetings for their opportunity to promote themselves, not listen to a speech on the latest updates from the exciting world of underwater xylophone tuning...

This network is more casual than some networks I participate in -there are no timers, no "Sergeants at Arms" or any reason for people to put a loonie into a pot should they commit a faux pas of some sort.  That said, with informality also comes a lack of a control mechanism.  How to address this without causing anyone grief or singling out people who likely don't even realize there is an issue, let alone asking them to accept responsibility for it?

That will be the focus of next week's keynote presentation.  I will be delivering content relating to maximizing member's return on their time and efforts spent at the chamber -in other words, how to get the most of their weekly time without causing the meeting to run until noon...  (And of course, the info will be applicable in other networks or places where people gather!)

In the last few years, I have moved from a member position, to a volunteer support position, and now to a consulting position as a Director Consultant for BNI Alberta North (www.bnialberta.ca) With these changes, I have had not only a lot more experience and exposure, but also additional training from one of the world's greatest networking gurus, Dr. Ivan Misner.  

Along with about 60 other people moving into this type of position worldwide, I was personally trained by Dr. Misner in November of 2014 during a week-long conference in California. I now have more tools in my toolbox, and I also need to respect the fact that this information is proprietary.  The specifics of my training are intended to be passed on to members of Dr. Misner's organization, BNI, the world's largest and most-successful "word of mouth" based marketing system for the betterment of the local chapters and the increased profitability of its members -not simply for my use as I see fit at any given time. 

Because of this, I will be drawing from my experience as a business networker over the past 10 years -what I have learned, what works, what DOESN'T work, and what I have found through trial and error to be invaluable ways to make important connections with people at networking functions.  We are all there for marketing and promotion, but some people do it better than others.  It is painful to watch people creating awkward situations when they should be building relationships.  I cannot wait to deliver the content I have generated!

I spoke on this at the chamber for five minutes a couple months back and it went over really well -I had people asking if I would put on a course for professionals looking to take their networking to the next level.  I'm eager to make an announcement about this later on in the coming week!  Stay tuned!