Level Next
by Felicia Davis

Creating Your 30-Second Commercial

You’re invited to attend a business function where several industry experts and company leaders are present. This is your moment to shine, to market your capabilities, to discuss what you have to offer but you fail to capitalize on the opportunity because you are not prepared to clearly articulate your value proposition…Ouch! If this scenario sounds familiar, it is okay – it happens to the best of us!

Given that statistic, one could argue that mastering the art of networking is a threshold skill. It is said that people generally form impressions of others within the first 20 to 30 seconds of that first encounter. Therefore, it is important that you understand the art of networking and building relationships. Networking is a long-term activity because it takes time to build a good network. Your relationship-building campaign should be “planned, targeted and intentional”. This process starts with formulating good 30-second introduction that has the impact necessary to elicit a meaningful dialogue with the individual. Your personal commercial should be clear, concise, distinctive and engaging. It should emphasize who you are and the solutions that you offer. For example, as a HR professional, I do performance consulting to assist both employees and organizations with bridging the gap between where they are and where they want to be. This introduction not only tells you who I am (HR Professional) and what I do (Performance Consulting) but also what happens as a result of what I do (employee and organizational performance gaps are bridged).

While attending networking events, it is important to keep it moving. Resist the temptation to be stationary and miss opportunities for interaction with others. If you think you will have a difficult time approaching others at first, there is a wonderful technique that usually works in attracting others to you by stimulating curiosity, which leads to conversation. Try creating a tag line for your name badge. One great tag line that I recently noticed came from a sales person with a prominent consulting firm. She identifies herself as the: “Queen of Connections” In fact, she takes it a step further by incorporating it as a part of her personal branding campaign by including it in emails, voicemail as well as on business cards. Think of an interesting word or phrase that best describes you and add it to your name badge at your next networking event. The results of this technique will help ease the transition as you work to master your networking skills.

Your first few networking encounters will not be easy but practice makes perfect. After all, in this particular job, you are the CEO of your career and if you do not take the time to manage it properly, no one else will.

So start networking….the results can be very rewarding!

About Felicia Davis

Felicia Davis is the President of Davis Consulting Group and creator of the popular newsletter, The HR Training Ground.