"Us poor accountants..."

I was a practising accountant for over 30 years so speak from experience. When you attend events and you’re asked, “What do you do?” it’s not the best time of the day. Now be honest we all know what peoples’ perceptions are of us when we say, “I’m an accountant”. Grey people in grey suits!  But we’re not are we? So how do we overcome this first impression? Rather than telling others who we are we tell them what we do, in fact we tell them what we can do for them.

“I help my clients to grow their business” or “I ensure my clients don’t pay a penny more tax than they should” or “When businesses get into financial difficulties, my role is to give the best advice.”  

All of a sudden people see you in a completely different light and treat you as the interesting person you no doubt are.

Networking isn't selling!!

Networking and selling are like oil and water, they don’t mix. When you go networking it is simply a platform for creating the opportunity to sell. 

Networking is about building relationships and the selling of yourself.  Be interested, not interesting and whilst you are in the middle of a conversation rabiting on about your products and services, think of the acronym, WAIT – WHY AM I TALKING.  All good sales people know that we were given two ears and one mouth, unfortunately not a lot of people realise it was a message from above that we are expected to use them in that proportion.  Creating the right impression by being a good listener can lead to that follow-up call after a networking event with the possibility then, only then, of doing some real business.

Take your networking seriously!

When you treat your attendance at business events as seriously as you would everyday business meetings, I believe you will have lots more fun and gain far more opportunities as a result. Surely you would never meet a client or a professional contact or in fact attend any serious business gathering without  some planning and preparation?   No. So why just roll up at a gathering, conference or any business encounter and hope for the best?

The smaller the event e.g. a dinner or a Saturday afternoon in your client’s executive box at Old Trafford the more important it is you find out about your fellow guests. Before attending events I suggest you ask yourself a number of questions using the table on the following page.

How are you going to get the best out of these two precious hours? How are you going to ensure that you make the right impression? Have you got a clear, concise and interesting answer to the question ‘what do you do?’ How many business cards are you going to take with you? How many “ahaa” moments should you be aiming for?