If you?ve been following our series of blogs on networking (click here to read the previous instalment on different types of networking events to attend),  you?ll be ready to think about what you need to do before you go networking. Just turning up to a networking meeting, hoping for it run smoothly and result in new business will not work. Like any marketing you do, you need to do some planning before you attend events.

Here are some things to consider:

What?s your objective? Why are you going to this particular event? Are you looking for new clients in a specific sector? Do you need to find a particular supplier? Are you going because you want o spend time talking to one of your existing clients? Is it the speaker or the presentation that is tempting you to attend?

Always have an objective for each meeting you go to, to help keep you focused. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time and money just chatting to people and eating nice lunches!

Who are your ideal clients? When you go networking, you won?t necessarily meet your ideal clients, but you?ll meet people who know them. You need to be able to describe them to the people you meet, so that they can introduce you to the right sort of people and send you referrals.

What do your ideal clients do? What problems or challenges are they struggling with, that you can solve for them? What makes them tick?

Who do you want to meet? This is a question we ask at every meeting of Networking Lunch in Oxford, so that we can help our members by doing their networking for them. Think about specific people you want to meet and ask the people you speak to at networking events if they know them. The more specific you are, the better chance you have of meeting that person.

Before you head off to your next networking meeting, if you take some time to think about why you?re going and who you want to meet, you?ll find you get much better returns from your investment of time, money and effort from your networking.