Smart networking and business matchmaking at Consider It Dunn Strategic Connections events.

What’s your passion? Why do you do what you do? What’s your “Oatmeal Message”?

Who are your ideal connections (clients, vendors, strategic alliances)? Reciprocal relationships.

Business matchmaking for entrepreneurs, business owners, corporate professionals.

EVENT: STRATEGIC CONNECTIONS “10” CINCINNATI
Thursday, 5/30/2013 ~ 5:00pm to 8:00pm   

Get Registered to Get Connected! Business Matchmaking & Networking at the Highest Level
Attendees complete a pre-event Strategic Connections Questionnaire and are welcomed at the door with a Connections Card of ideal people in the room (clients, vendors, partners, colleagues, new friends) to meet their professional and business goals. Introductions are facilitated by Strategic Connections Ambassadors.
Champion Networking!

For more information & to Register: Opens Monday, May 15, 2013 at 8 AM.

• Connect with Intention.
• Advocate your Passion.
• Champion for Results.

Connect with Intention.
Advocate your Passion.
Champion for Results.

Connection Cards Created! Matches Made! Great conversations & many business alliances created and strengthened. Lots of early success stories of client business exchanged and reciprocal relationships already flowing. We’ve heard about some Micro-Network^TM partnerships getting to work already!

It’s a Powerful Event of expanding business, expediting growth and achieving goals in a high energy, fun and productive evening!! It inspires connections, advocates, champions and reaches out to the great community of business owners, entrepreneurs and corporate professionals.  Join us next time for extraordinary networking and connecting!

Keys to Networking/Connecting Success:

• Reciprocal Relationships
• Creating a “Micro-Network”^TM
• Event Marketing Strategy

It happens at Strategic Connections^TM!    Click here to tag yourself & check out more photos on Facebook!  

Strategic Connections^TM 10  in April/May 2013

Google+ link: Google+

Get Registered to Get Connected! Business Matchmaking & Networking at the Highest Level

Attendees complete a pre-event Strategic Connections Questionnaire and are welcomed at the door with a Connections Card of ideal people in the room (clients, vendors, partners, colleagues, new friends) to meet their professional and business goals. Introductions are facilitated by Strategic Connections Ambassadors. Build Reciprocal Relationships! Champion Networking!

• Do you want to be matched with your ideal customers, share your expertise and close great business faster?   
• Can you imagine an event where you are introduced directly to those customers and vendor partners that can grow and support your business?
• Do you want to focus on your passion – the real reason that you are in your business?   

Must register in advance by Monday, 2/4/2013  here: http://bit.ly/StrategicConnections9-Registration

It’s a productive, high-energy and fun networking event. At Strategic Connections, we are focused on your professional passion and success. We create valuable new connections for you, so that you can begin working in those business partnerships right away!  

I’m thrilled to be Sponsoring a great networking event – SOCIAL PINT NETWORKING! 

And delighted to announce the upcoming Strategic Connections Event on Thursday, November 15, 2012 (5-8pm).
We’re Celebrating 2 Years of Business and 1000′s of Business Matchmaking Connections!!

REGISTRATION OPENS on Monday, October 8, 2012!!  Make sure you’re on the invitation list by adding your e-mail address above!

It all happens at Strategic Connections!

• Do you want to be matched with your ideal customers, share your expertise and close great business faster?   
• Can you imagine an event where you are introduced directly to those customers and vendor partners that can grow and support your business?
• Do you want to focus on your passion – the real reason that you are in your business?   

It’s a productive, high-energyand fun networking event. At Strategic Connections, we are focused on your professional passion and success. We create valuable new connections for you, so that you can begin working in those business partnerships right away!

But did the event align with my networking strategy? This event invitation gave me pause to reflect on what we need to consider when determining the best networking events for our strategy.

Some of the questions we consider for our clients:

• Who is my best connection at this time (client, vendor or strategic alliance partner)? Who do I want to meet?
• How does the event’s purpose align with my business’ goals and values?
• What is the total time commitment for successful participate at this event (preparation, attendance, follow-up)?
• Is this a new event (new concepts/new people, but unproven entity) or an established event (maybe same people, but proven concept)?

And the most important question for business professionals and entrepreneurs:

• What’s my Networking Strategy?

We’ll explore this concept more soon. In the meantime, please share with us…

What do you think about when deciding to attend a networking event? 

Make more great connections – 2012 Business Matchmaking.
Information & Register here: http://conta.cc/StrategicConnectionsEvent-Jan26

***
Find excellent Connections/Networking Events curated here: http://consideritdunnllc.com/index.php/strategic-events-calendar/

Is there an Excellent Connections/Networking Event not on the calendar?  Please post it here & I’ll get it added!

Connect with Intention | Advocate your Passion | Champion for Results

The answer is in the POWER of an Event Marketing Strategy!

• Do you want to create an event?
• Do you want to sponsor or speak in front of your ideal clients?
• Do you want to network at the best events to maximize your results?

If you answered YES, then let’s connect!

As my gift to Keri’s Ideal Girl Media audience, I’m offering a 30-minute consultation to evaluate & discuss your 2012 Event Marketing Strategy.

Click here to connect: http://bit.ly/IdeaGirlMedia_Consultation

(This link takes you to a quick questionnaire & I’ll contact you to schedule our call!)

      The Power of an Event Strategy!

It’s all about Marketing Strategy. We as entrepreneurs (finally!) get to the place where we have a clear(er) picture of our ideal client. (Ideal client description below – read on.) We have our infrastructure in place, our programs created and we’ve been helping clients for a while. Now we want to build and grow this business and ideally work with clients who understand how we can help them. These clients “get” the purpose and passion of our business and they “get” the value that delegating to an expert can provide.

So, to get to the question that I hear very often, “Where can I find these ideal clients?” This post will suggest some answers to that question.

Keys to success:

• Value-Oriented Content. It’s critical to provide excellent content about your area of expertise. Your ideal clients want to learn and understand the depth and breadth of your knowledge. Most of us are very busy and may not have time to absorb it all, but having a resource – a font of knowledge – and knowing where to go (website, Facebook page, e-mail notes) is critical. Provide great content is builds credibility and is also a portal to learning more about how we can engage for service and support for our business and personal needs.
• Form and Function. Create a way to share information and content that feels great for you and speaks well to your ideal client audience. Although I love to write, I also love to talk and my enthusiasm and passion translate well on video. In 2012 I’ll be posting more videos (vblogging) and encouraging my clients to connect with me via web-conference (e.g. Skype), so we can engage more fully.
• Focus on your Passion. Most entrepreneurs LOVE what they do. However, we all have to do the administrative, marketing, development, strategy, financial things or non-passion areas that we don’t love. Figure out which of those areas you must do and for the other areas, find excellent resources to support you in your business practice. Having a strong business infrastructure and great vendor partnerships is an important investment of time and resources. Vendor partners are often great Advocates and Champions for your business.

I highly encourage my colleagues and clients and you, dear reader, to create a Marketing Strategy with a specific Events and Networking component.

Begin by developing a one-page summary of your business goals/objectives and 8 – 10 key detailed characteristics of your ideal client. **What’s an ideal client? The person you and your business can help the most and you’ll enjoy the experience of working together. **

Create a brainstorm session for you and your business. Have some fun and be focused. Create (guess) answers to these questions or others.

• Do they need education and training (for certifications or skill set improvement)?
• Where do these people do business (coffeeshop, office, on the road, home office)?
• What is important to them (saving time, connecting with others, saving money, more time for their passions)?
• How do they spend their time (working for clients, focused on their non-passion areas of business, with their kids, at professional association meetings)?
• How can I most help them (based on the services and products that my business provides)?

Now that you’ve created your Event Marketing Strategy, you can share it with your “Micro-Network”TM of Advocates & Champions. They will support you in implementing your plan for success. Not sure what I mean by a “Micro-Network”TM of Advocates & Champions? Sign up over there on the right panel and I’ll send you an audio recording of a tele-seminar that I recently recorded. It’s 45 minute of great content & expertise!

Imagine the impact of hosting, speaking at or sponsoring a well-executed event, in which your target clients and micro-network advocates are in the audience and you are center stage (in name as a Sponsor or in-person as a Presenter). Collaborating on or creating the perfect event can establish you as an authority in your industry and a talented specialist to potential clients. It is the # 1 way to enhance your visibility, motivate others to take interest in your business, share your knowledge to many and increase your revenue.

Four (4) ways to leverage your Event Strategy:

• Speak/Present at an event
• Create an event
• Sponsor an event
• Host/Collaborate on an existing event
• Network at the best events for you!

Choosing to include an event strategy in your marketing & business planning is critical. An event (for the purposes of this post) is defined as a goal-oriented gathering of specifically selected people, so it can be a business development coffee meet-up, a networking happy hour, a focus group, a product launch, a client appreciation party, a business meeting, etc. It can get you connected, increase your visibility and enhance your ideal client relationships!

Q1. Why create/join/sponsor/attend an event?
A1. A well-planned event can boost your ability to connect with people. It’s great to connect one-on-one, but it’s more powerful to share knowledge and expertise with many people at the same time. Do you want to host, speak at or sponsor the event? What are your goals and how can you reach them with an event?

Q2. Who is in the room? Who is the event audience?
A2. It’s all about being in the right room and making thoughtful, strategic connections. You’ll want to know if your ideal target clients are likely to be attending and interested in this event? What can you learn about the attendees before the event, if you’re the speaker, sponsor or co-host? Sometimes I’ve recommended that a client consider sponsoring the perfect event, even if they haven’t had sponsors previously.

Q3. When and where to schedule an event?
A3. My primary question for this topic is, “How do you want your attendees to feel at this event?” This question sets the tone for selecting an ideal venue environment and contributes to scheduling considerations, as well. Timeline is one of the 3 key components of event management (budget & goals are the other two).

• What day of the week is best?
• What time of day?
• Length of program/event
• Travel and accommodations
• Pre-event promotion timeline
• Logistical event needs
• Event ticket price, event budget
• Number of expected attendees
• Holidays, city or area events

Q4.How do I make a great event happen?
A4. Here are some of the key ideas in crafting a successful event strategy:

• Communicate & collaborate with clear vision & goals
• Invite and inspire a team to support you in your goals/event (including ideal sponsors, vendors, friends, experts)
• What’s the ideal take-away? (promo items or community creation around purpose)
• Creating communities before/during/post meeting to measure interest & involvement – have an emcee (MC)
• Create and implement a comprehensive promotions, event & social media strategy
• Consider hiring an event planner or event strategist.

I’ve been curating a calendar, focused on excellent networking events for entrepreneurs and business owners, as well as those in and considering “job transition” in the Cincinnati and New York area. Lots of existing events listed here: “Strategic Connections Recommends” Event Calendar

Thanks to Idea Girl Media for a fabulous January Jig Event!!

Next Strategic Connections event (in Cincinnati): http://conta.cc/StrategicConnectionsEvent-Jan26

Events give you (and your cause) visibility! Networking boosts your connections at events as host, attendee, sponsor or speaker. Consider these keys:

• Have a project management approach to your event: focus on goals, budget & timeline.
• How do you want your attendees to feel while at your event?
• A strategic & well-planned event can boost your ability to connect with people.
• You can share your knowledge and establish you as an expert in your field.
• Events give visibility to a cause or passion that you want other people to support.
• Successfully promoted/managed events use a strategic combination of social media platforms and timing.
• Consider which are the best events at which to host, speak, sponsor or network to increase your visibility.

Thanks to Idea Girl Media for a fabulous January Jig Event!!

Next Strategic Connections event (in Cincinnati): http://conta.cc/StrategicConnectionsEvent-Jan26

Strategic Connections VIDEO