Are you into attending events and into introducing yourself to different attendees? Do you enjoy signing up to attend conferences with your target clients as participants? Are you a social butterfly? If your answer is yes, you must have an idea already the importance and benefits of meeting people to improve your businesses and maybe to enrich your circle.

I am shy actually and approaching people I do not know is a no no for me. It changed though when I discovered my love for dancing, since elementary till college, I am always on stage, and receiving congratulatory remarks from the audience helps me a lot in terms of confidence. Here comes my corporate life, I am fortunate to meet the grandson of the former president of the Philippines. He owns this company where I worked before as his Chief Operation Officer, a designation he gave me after a week of being his head for business development. As one of his COO, I am required to join him in his special events, all of them  and shared to us the strategies of networking. Yes, I learned. I am super grateful, he is the man most wanted in terms of getting him as a partner or as an investor, he is one heck crazy special in the corporate society. I am fortunate that I learned the beauty of networking from the best and yes, even getting as many business cards from the participants, I did that.

A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF OPPORTUNITIES

Why do I think it’s important to meet new people? Well, it’s a whole new world out there. There are so many opportunities in store for you and you never know, your business partner or even your boyfriend is just there in the corner.

INCREASED KNOWLEDGE

You need to accept that even though people are telling you that you are smart, intelligent and who looks like you know everything, you are not? There are 7 Billion people in the world with different cultures, foundations, ideas and experiences. Squeeze some from them. By meeting different kinds of people, you expose yourself to new knowledge. Oh! did I mentioned that I am an engineering graduate, an industrial engineer to be exact and even took Masters in Management Major in Engineering Management. Yes, super technical if you will ask but I am right now into radio and have my own radio show for two hours every Saturdays. How it happened? I met people who helped me along the way. Imagine if I just stayed home when they invited me? Nada! So go out!

BUILD A TRUSTED NETWORK

yes, you have a good website and your Facebook accounts has tons of followers but you cannot have a multi million deal with just alone. Meeting face to face is still necessary. You like to know the person behind that campaign or behind that proposal. Sometimes, we like to see if their company values is aligned to yours and it’s hard to figure that out by just looking at your FB post right? Personal approach is still important, you got to share and know how these people feels, I think that’s something technology hasn’t taken away from us.

So that’s it! Try to attend many events, meet those prospective clients and reach more people. No matter what industry we are in. We are all in the people business. We will all be successful if we get to know the customers and colleagues. Nothing beats the power of face to face, a truly personal connection.