How to pack out your business

networking events with a room full of

local business owners!

Visitors are the lifeblood of all business networking events. Visitors add

more buzz to the room, they are potential new clients for members, they

bring their own contacts who they can recommend members to, they could

become suppliers, and they may like the meeting so much that they decide

to apply for membership!

A meeting without any visitors is flat, there is less opportunity, and members

can find the meeting repetitive because there is nobody new to talk to about

their products and services.

Having been involved in business networking for over four years, including

starting new groups and relaunching groups that were failing, I know that

bringing visitors to the meeting is one of the most positive contributions you

can make to your fellow members.

Here is my step by step plan for getting an extra five to 15 visitors every time

to your meetings:

1. Download the Email Marketing Robot software from

www.emailmarketingrobot.com which automates the process of

finding and inviting local business owners on auto-pilot.

2. Use the list of business types most likely to be interested in attending

business networking events here.

3. Make a list of all the local place names that are within a 30 minute

drive to your venue where you hold your networking event. Put them

one on each line, the format Town County works best.

4. Use this proven template for inviting visitors to networking events. You

can download the invitation template here.

5. Edit the template so that it gives the details of your meeting two

weeks time from now. This is the best notice period to give to busy

business owners.

6. Click start and the software will start finding local businesses and

inviting them to your event.

If you run the software from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and give two

weeks’ notice, you can expect to get about 5 to 15 visitors to your next

event.

For maximum results employ a continuous inviting strategy. So when your

event is one week ahead, start inviting for your next event – always

maintaining a two week notice period.

People will contact you by email or phone asking for further information, and

be aware that some people will turn up without confirming – so it is best if

your venue can be somewhat flexible about numbers.

When people contact you be enthusiastic, and reassure them. Attending a

business networking event can be daunting for the first time, especially if

the business owner is not experienced with business networking.

I find it is best to tell people in the reply email that you look forward to

personally meeting them, and introducing them to the other businesses who

could be useful connections for them.

Here is what one business networker had to say about the software:

“I wanted to say I think your software has changed my life. First

campaign and I’ve just had the most successful launch of a

networking group ever. I’ve also done a pilot for someone else and

that was massively successful. I’m over the moon!

I launched a new group and got 29 new people in the room. In fact

the room wasn’t big enough and the hotel upgraded my room twice.

Only 5 people who said they were coming didn’t turn up on the day.

There is also a waiting list of 20 more people who couldn’t make the

first event, so I will be speaking to the hotel and asking them if we can

have the huge room again.

I will be going mad and opening two more groups in September. It’s

really amazing stuff. I would recommend the software 100%!”

- Rodger Scott, Working Breakfast.