Tips for Virtual Networking Success in Chat Platforms With Thomas Gay

We’ve all attended virtual networking meetings and wished we were more prepared ahead of time to share our contact information in the chat. There’s so much value in posting your information into the Chat stream.

Here’s a few tips to help you get better results from the time you invest in networking.

Contact Information:
Everyone has a preference or style on what they provide. If you want to connect with them you need to make it easy for them; providing an email address and a link to your calendar is a personal choice. If you want people to reach out to you, again open up the ways to make it easy!

Website Links:
Absolutely include your website and links to products, services, events, or other offerings. People are making fast decisions on whether there’s a possible fit or opportunity to share with you and why not put your best foot forward here. Including your LinkedIn profile, adding social media links is a further option. Do make sure to paste in the complete url of your link with https so it’s clickable in the chat.

Benefits You Provide:
If you can provide a very short description (8-10 words) of the benefits or value you provide. Make it answer “why should I care?” as the reader. (Looking for, seeking, helping, solving…)

Preparation:
Prepare all of the above before the meeting starts and save it in a document where you can copy and paste it into the meeting chat. This makes it easy for you to double check ahead of time that your message fits the audience and allows you to focus, actively listen and bring your best to others in the meeting.

Follow-up:
Don’t expect to get results or a sale from the time you spend in the meeting. It’s the starting place and the next steps happen after the meeting. Always approach following up from the perspective of starting a relationship. That means finding the people that would make great grand connections, planning a thoughtful call or note, researching the other person so you can relate to them and understand what they do or may need and bringing solutions to create win-win results. You can follow-up within a couple of days at the most when the shared experience and reference points from the meeting are fresh in the minds of the people who attend.

And remember, review the chat posts of all the attendees as there’s a high probability that there’s some great opportunities awaiting you with people who did not show up in your break-out rooms.

Tom is offering an exclusive offer for Grand Connection Members on ChatBridge Connect. Please visit the Membership Hub for more information.

MEET OUR CONTRIBUTING MEMBER THOMAS:
Tom is a serial entrepreneur focused on bringing web solutions to complex business and marketing problems. Tom’s currently the CEO of the new sales building platform, EngagePro.com, and previously founded and led Refer.com to serve over 5 million users.

Tom has served on numerous corporate and community boards and is a frequently sought speaker on the topics of referral and relationship marketing, leadership, and leading socially responsible businesses.