My least favorite part of every conference is the happy hour. They’re always at the end of a packed day where I’ve been in full social mode since breakfast. My body is tired, my brain is slowing down, and my social battery ran out hours ago. All I want to do is stop talking out loud and go back to my hotel room with a good book.
It’s easy to feel skeptical about networking events. I’ve attended my fair share that didn’t amount to much besides leaving me wiped out. Maybe the attendees were not my crowd, or perhaps I didn’t approach the event in the right way. Regardless, I ended up tired, disappointed, and socialed out.
On the other hand, in my time as Textio’s CEO, happy hours, lunches, and other unstructured networking events are where my most impactful connections were made. These events connected me with people who would become Textio customers, investors, employees, and more. In fact, in our first couple of years as a business, nearly half our revenue came by way of people that I initially met at this kind of event.
Last month, a group of founders in the OpCo portfolio got together to talk about how to make the most of unstructured networking events. Whether you’re a founder, operator, investor, or anything in between, you can put these strategies into play.
Strategy #1: Prioritize mercilessly
How many events have you arrived at and known within two minutes that it wasn’t going to be a good use of time? Even further, have you ever agreed to join an event while knowing in advance that it was unlikely to be helpful for you?
Making the most of networking events starts with just saying no to invitations that don’t make sense for you. You have limited time. Every event you agree to join comes at the cost of your everyday work, time with friends and family, exercise and sleep, and more. Ask yourself:
- Is it professionally or personally valuable for me to meet the attendees of this event?
- Is it worth the opportunity cost to attend? Not only in the time spent at the event itself, but in the time I will spend prepping for it?
- Will it be fun for me?
If the answer to all those questions is no, then skip it.
Strategy #2: Set an event goal
Once you’ve decided to attend an event, you’re more likely to get something out of it if you approach it with real accountability.
If your purpose is to meet potential customers, then set yourself a concrete goal: “Have at least five conversations with people in my ICP and get their contact info so I can follow up.” Approach the event with your goal in mind. You (hopefully!) wouldn’t spend marketing dollars on a conference without a concrete lead generation goal. Networking events are no different. Don’t spend time on something without being clear about what you want to get out of it.
Are you trying to meet potential customers or investors? What about candidates for you to hire or peers you can learn from? Regardless of what you’re hoping the event will deliver for you, set and define a specific goal. Then use that goal to shape how you spend your time at the event.
Strategy #3: Shamelessly ask event organizers for help
Once you’ve set a goal for the event, it’s time to operationalize. No one can help you more than the people putting the event together. They’d like you to attend future events and recommend them to others, so the organizers are highly motivated to help you make the event a big success.
Once you know who you want to meet, ask organizers which attendees you should look out for. I ask questions like the below ahead of time, during, and after the event:
- “I want to meet CHROs with a background in tech. Which three people attending should I make sure I talk to?”
- “I’d like to meet Jane Smith, and I think she might be attending. Can you introduce me?”
- “I had a great conversation with Jane Smith, but I didn’t get her contact information. Would you be willing to forward her the note below with my information?”
It’s consistently surprising to me how few people ask event organizers for help. They offer such an unfair advantage for turning unstructured events into success stories.
Strategy #4: Have an airtight 60-second pitch
I’m not talking about your long origin story or your 5-minute demo, though you need those too for other settings. I’m also not talking about your glib “We’re Airtable for chocolatiers” or whatever pithy summary you include in your pitch deck. I mean a one-minute synopsis of who you are and what you do. Not 30 seconds, not 3 minutes. Practice it.
If you’re a founder, your 60-second pitch contains:
- Your name and your company name
- Who your customer is
- Single sentence about the value you provide customers
- Single sentence about the product itself / how it works
That’s it. If you have a good one, you will use it over and over again at these events. It should be specific enough to give people a clear idea of what you do, but not so long as to be tedious.
Strategy #5: Give a gift
As Textio’s CEO, I was most interested in meeting talent executives who could become our customers. If I knew which leaders were attending an event ahead of time, I didn’t leave anything to chance. I brought them something that they could take back to their organizations and use right away.
Textio’s first product helped talent teams write job posts that performed better, so I prepared personalized one-sheeters for each talent leader I wanted to meet. The one-pager gave them insights about their current career site that might surprise them. I could tell them that they were using the word ruthless 20 times more often than their competitors. I could point out that 11% of their job posts contained misspellings. I could show them that half their roles were missing required EEOC statements.
When I attended events with these leaders, I gave them their one-sheeter personally, and offered to send the digital copy as a follow-up. This was the perfect gift: helpful, relevant to their work, and perfectly positioned for us to talk more after the event.
If you know who you want to meet, bring a gift, either to share during the event itself or as a follow-up. Not generic swag or blog links, either. The best gifts are personal.
Final strategy: Be open to serendipity
If you’ve intentionally decided to attend an event and done your prep work, chances are good you will get a lot out of it. But once you’re there, it’s also okay to enjoy the ride. Be open to the conversations that unfold. You never know who you might meet!
