When I signed on with the agency I’m working with, they asked me to connect with the community and make our name known and visible. And along the way, gain clients.
I took a three-pronged approach, one that could be applied to networking in general. The outreach I proposed and followed was to connect with:
- A chamber of commerce in the metro area
- At least two associations or customer-centered groups
- The regional business press
Chambers. I “shopped” chambers in the DFW Metroplex. After sitting through many meet-and-greets and “elevator speech” sessions at smaller chambers, I caught up with the largest, oldest continually operating chamber in Dallas, the North Dallas Chamber. I chose them, not only because of the types of events they held (that allowed great interaction) but because of who attended: business people of all levels, city council people, mayors, state legislators, congressmen. Pretty good company and a place where “the power of teh referral really lives.
Associations. I wanted to be where my potential customers spent their off hours. Since we target marketing and communications decisionmakers, I chose IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Dallas chapter (this is the fourth city I’ve been involved with this group; after Reno, Seattle and Minneapolis, I can safely say this is the most active and effective group of the four).
I also hang out with the DFW American Marketing Association (AMA). This is aimed a bit higher at C-level and management-level marketing professionals. Meetings are all over the Metroplex with something most every week.
The Business Press. While I read most everything on line, I still subscribe to paper papers. The daily Dallas Morning News gets every page turned every day. The Dallas Business Journal is a weekly not-to-miss part of my life. Both give a clear picture of what is going on in the regional business community and a great source of leads (however, the smaller Collin County Business Press still is my all-time leader for providing leads for cold calls in the fast-growing Northeast part of the metro area).
The three-pronged approach keeps me busy and has build my data base sufficiently in almost two eyars to allow for the publication and sitribution of an on-line newsletter.
Relentless
