Ebook: Make your contacts count: networking know-how for business and career success

From the Publisher: Make Your Contacts Count is a practical, step-by-step guide for creating, cultivating, and capitalizing on networking relationships and opportunities. Packed with valuable tools, the book offers a field-tested "Hello to Goodbye" system that takes readers from entering a room, to making conversations flow, to following up. Updated from its first edition, the book now includes expanded advice on building social capital at work and in job hunting, as well as new case studies, examples, checklists, and questionnaires. Readers will discover how to: draft a networking plan; cultivate current contacts; make the most of memberships; effectively exchange business cards; avoid the top ten networking turn-offs; share anecdotes that convey character and competence; transform their careers with a networking makeover. Job-seekers, career-changers, entrepreneurs, and others will find all the networking help they need to supercharge their careers and boost their bottom lines.;Part 3: Sharpen Your Skills -- 6: Know the "netiquette" -- Enter enthusiastically -- Brighten up your body language -- ENGAGE your partner -- Tune up your tone of voice -- Consider closeness -- Watch what you put in your mouth -- Treat touching as taboo -- Forego flirting -- Pay your way -- Exchange business cards effectively -- Join groups comfortably -- Bonus: Ten tips on the nuances of "netiquette" -- 7: Avoid the top twenty turn-offs -- 8: Who are you? -- Why remembering names is hard -- Learn someone's name -- Teach your name -- Try these twenty tips -- Break up bunches of introductions -- Deal skillfully with forgotten names -- Give yourself a tagline -- Yes, mind your manners -- Introduction rule: FIRST IS FOREMOST -- 9: What do you do? -- Why most answers bomb -- Make the right things happen -- Give it your BEST -- Be interesting -- Try these tips -- Read these frequently asked questions -- 10: What are we going to talk about? -- Listen for your cue -- Use success stories to tell what's new -- Figure out your agenda -- Begin with the right side -- What do you have to give? -- What do you want to get? -- Give and get with ease -- Practice agenda-making -- Go Public with your agenda -- Exchange something -- 11: Make conversation flow -- Listen generously -- Use your EARS -- How listening generously pays off -- Be seriously curious -- Tell success stories -- Construct your story carefully -- Sample these stories -- People want to know -- 12: End with the future in mind -- Prepare for the next time -- Listen for the bell -- Eight ways to leave -- Ritual for leave-taking -- Do you have questions? -- 13: Follow through -- Focus on follow through -- Figure out your reasons to reconnect -- Face your fears -- Fill in the blanks on your calendar -- Five goals of follow through -- Freshen up your relationships -- Find the way -- Bonus: Five more ingenious ways to fit in follow through.;Preface: Get ready for state-of-the-art networking -- Time is right -- Are you ready? -- Contacts count networking system -- Part 1: Survey Your Skills And Mindset -- 1: Assess your skills -- Instructions -- Observing the "netiquette" -- Assessing your comfort level -- Being strategic -- Meeting people -- Using networking organizations -- Making the most of events -- Achieving bottom-line results -- Following through -- Check your results -- Next steps -- 2: Change your mindset -- Come in from the cold -- Ten biggest misconceptions about networking -- Ten turnoffs in the language of networking -- You say you're shy? -- Catch your critic -- Convert your critic into your coach -- Believe the best about yourself and others -- Bonus: Know your style -- Part 2: Set Your Strategy -- 3: Teach trust -- Move from taking to trusting -- Teach that you can be trusted -- Trust matrix -- Avoid manipulation -- 4: Develop your relationships -- Move through the six stages -- Next move is up to you -- Rate your relationships -- Have questions about the A's? -- 5: Go with your goals -- Size your project to match your goal -- Check out your choices -- Assess your network -- Plan your strategic positioning project -- Bonus: Get off to a good start.;Part 4: Select Your Settings -- 14: Network at work -- Got the right word? -- Bank on the benefits -- Ten ways to get on board quickly -- Assess your corporate culture -- How strong is your inside network? -- Map out a plan -- Pair up with peers -- Avoid erroneous assumptions -- Overcome the barriers -- Bonus: After organizational earthquakes, rebuild your network -- 15: Make it rain clients -- What people think -- Professionalize your practice development -- Make conversations count -- What's one conversation worth? -- Create constellations -- Cross-sell your clients -- Make asking for referrals a ritual -- 16: (Net)work from home -- Tune in to the trends -- Conquer the challenges -- Link up your life and your livelihood -- Bonus: Create a constellation -- 17: Make the most of your memberships -- Size your network to fit your needs -- Link up one-on-one -- Access anybody -- Join groups -- Choose groups strategically -- Understand the hierarchy -- Know the group before you join -- Orchestrate who knows you -- Twelve biggest mistakes members make -- Jump right in -- 18: Rev up referral groups -- See how they run -- Shop around -- Check it out -- Don't just join, join in -- Start small -- Spice up the meetings -- Start your own -- 19: Connect at conventions -- Expand your expectations -- Get ready, get set: before you go -- Show up at the conference -- Follow up after you get home -- Later on, get re-inspired -- Bonus: Plan meetings that get people talking -- 20: Jump-start your job hunt -- Use the contacts count networking system -- Twenty-five tactics to find a job fast -- Bonus: Manage your strategy support group -- Index -- About the authors.