What to do at an Office Party

After having received many responses to last week blog post about what to expect from New Year’s receptions, I wanted to share with you a more fun look at office parties.

Look at this flowchart about what to do at an Office Party by Jeff Rosenberg on the CollegeHumor website.

Have fun !

Jan

What to Expect from New Year’s Receptions

January is typically the month of New Year’s receptions and other networking events.

Many people have the feeling that they don’t get the results they could get from them.

In the past I have already given many tips about making the most out of networking events like:

• “Why many people are frustrated when going at events (and what to do about it“
• 9 Tips to make New Year’s Receptions and Events a success
• Which events to go to and how to know they take place

(+ look at the categories bar on the right hand side for more tips about networking at events).

In this post I would like to add that there is a difference between most New Year’s Receptions and other networking events.

Traditionally many New Year’s receptions attract a lot of people. If they are hosted by an organisation like a Chamber of Commerce there is also a variety of profiles, industries and backgrounds.

Many people who are in sales get frustrated with this since they don’t find many new customers. And that’s most of the time no wonder. The percentage of participants that has buying power (= they can make the decision to purchase a product or service) is very low. On top of that the percentage of participants who might be interested in your product or service is even lower. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack!

As a consequence a lot of sales people and business owners who attend our training courses then comment: “So I better not attend these events anymore?”

That might be a conclusion.

However I suggest to look at it from a different point of view.

In my opinion “general” networking events are good to stay in touch with your current network. Many times you can see a lot of people in a few hours time, which is a very efficient use of your time. The benefit of this is to stay top of mind.

If you want to find new customers, then I suggest you start from your goals and your target group and look for smaller networking events where they gather.

To your success !

Jan

PS: for more networking tips download a free light version of the networking book Let’s Connect in English (or het netwerk boek Let’s Connect in Dutch)

Who Can Edit a LinkedIn Company Page?

Especially when we give training courses to multinationals or when we do strategic sessions with the top management of a company, this question pops up: who can edit our LinkedIn Company page?

This is how it works by default:

1) Someone creates the first version of a LinkedIn Company Page.
2) Everybody else with the same email address after the @ sign can edit the page. So if john.smith@company-abc.com has created the LinkedIn Company page then everybody with the @company-abc.com email address can change the page.

As a consequence my advice to you is: if you don’t have a LinkedIn Company page yet, make one right now before someone with another email address creates it without you being able to change it!

As you can imagine the fact that anybody with the same email address can change the Company page, makes some people very nervous. In my opinion you don’t have to be too dramatic about it since you can always see who changed the Company page and you can change it again.

But now LinkedIn also has the option to choose who is allowed to change the Company page.

How to do this?

1) Go to your Company Profile.
2) Click Edit.
3) Under “Company Page Admins” choose “Designated Users Only”.
4) Choose which colleagues are allowed to change the page (of course they must have a LinkedIn Profile and you must be connected to them)

To your success !

Jan

PS: get your free light version and free updates of the book How to REALLY use LinkedIn (or in Dutch: het boek Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken)

Best of the Blog 2010

In the beginning of this new year I would like to look back at 2010 by sharing the top blog posts of the past year. For your convenience I have divided them in four categories.

Category Networking Insights

• What I learned from my taxi driver
• 7 Types Of Conditioning that Might Destroy Your Networking Results
• Listening is the Most Important Networking Skill
• The Power of Classmates

Category Networking at Events

• 9 Tips To Make New Year’s Receptions and Events a Success
• Why Many People Are Frustrated When Going to Events (and What to Do About It)

Category LinkedIn

• Company and Personal Branding Tip for LinkedIn: the use of Summary
• Why LinkedIn is important for Job Seekers and Recruiters
• 5 ways to use LinkedIn Companies to find more customers
• My personal policy regarding accepting LinkedIn Invitations

Category Networking Tools

• Track The Response To Your Tweets and Status Updates in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and other Social Media
• HootSuite Makes Your Professional and Social Networking Life Easier

Enjoy !

Jan