Conducting a networking meeting

Effectively leading your networking meeting requires a plan of action. You must know where you will start the discussion and how you plan to direct it in order to lead to your objective. Each networking meeting will have a different flavor, based on the ultimate objective. You should go into it knowing exactly what your goal is. With some networking contacts, especially at the beginning of your campaign, you will merely hope to get referred to someone in your chosen industry. Eventually, after you start to gain momentum and follow up on new leads, you will find yourself in front of individuals who are directly related to your target industry. In either case, you will need to have prepared an angle for the discussion as well as some specific questions.

Start by recapping your intent. You should give a brief statement about your current pursuits and indicate what led you to contact them. This should not be a career summary, it should be focused on the research you are doing and how you feel this individual can help you. If you start out by giving a professional summary, you are breaking the first rule of networking: do not put your contact on the spot by asking him for a job. If the contact specifically asks about your background or experience in a certain area, that’s great. This is an indication that he is interested in what you bring to the table and also suggests that he may have ideas about pointing you in a particular direction. Otherwise, keep the discussion focused on your industry research not on you. As the discussion progresses, you can gradually localize the subject matter pertaining more specifically to his particular company. Given that he will likely refer to his own experiences in answering your general industry questions, you will be able to touch on his statements to raise more questions about his organization and their internal structure.  

Of course, you must also always be prepared to go with the flow. You might find the contact to be extremely chatty and may very well have much more to say than you would have anticipated.  This is excellent and can lead to results beyond your expectations. Wherever the discussion goes, make sure you bring it back to the intended line of focus and come out of this meeting with the achieved goal.