“It’s a bit like speed dating…”

Eyebrows raised, David flicked through the brief for the exhibition.

“Not for me, thanks,” he retorted, “ I’d rather watch you to see how it’s done and, anyway, with your looks, you’ll get a better response than I would”, thus missing the whole point of the exercise.

To be fair, the chance to meet other businesses all under the same roof did seem too good an opportunity to miss.  And although “speed networking” was something I’d never even tried before, I’m always ready to try anything once.  Picking up some Floating Concepts literature from our files, I headed home, prepared for a night of perfecting my presentation skills in front of the mirror and ensuring that my product knowledge was bang up to date.

The following morning, David and I headed to Manchester Central (formerly the G-Mex), acquired our passes, and wandered into the main exhibition. There was certainly a hub of excitement as deals were bartered and information gathered. My initial aim was to find the speed networking area and gain a place; I had heard that demand for places was high and I didn’t want to lose the opportunity to talk about the company and create new contacts.

The rumours were true, and the queue for places nearly spanned the entire length of the exhibition.  Waiting in line, I spoke to one of the assistants from Corkscrew Events who were hosting the speed networking.

“You need business cards and a bottle of water,” she advised.

Although no bottle of water, with business cards in one hand and brochures in the other and was ready to roll!

After five minutes, everyone was seated in four sections.  Each section had chairs facing each other, with one chair at the end.  The purpose of the ‘end chair’ was to create an uneven amount of places so that when everyone moved up a chair (in a circle-like fashion), they were facing a new person.  Chatting to the other delegates, we were all suddenly called to order by a hefty looking gentleman wearing a beret who looked as though he had undergone some serious military training. Barking instructions at us during his introduction we did learn that he had indeed been in the army and that if any of us so dared to leave our sections (thus ruining the complete circle of speed networking delegates), he would ensure we wouldn’t get very far to the exits.

Threats noted (!), those in our section got ready.  At the first whistle, the left side would begin talking about their business for 30 seconds.  When the second whistle was heard, the opposite side took their turn for 30 seconds.  And when the third whistle was sounded, everyone moved clockwise to the next chair.  Simple.

The first person I spoke to was Stephen Ward from BusinessGiftUK.com. I say, “spoke to”, although I probably blabbed my way through the first 10 seconds of my speel, improvising the best way to get across what I wanted to say.  Yes, I might have spent sufficient time in front of the mirror the night before, but trying to explain the multi facets of Floating Concepts within a mere 30 seconds was harder than I thought!  And to put me to shame, Stephen delivered a very calm and professional summary of what his company had been up to for the last 25 years.   As Stephen’s company produces quirky business cards I suppose his job was  easier than mine anyway, but from his very professional delivery I could tell that this wasn’t his first experience of  speed networking.

Anyway, once I got in to my flow, I was buzzing.

“Hi, my name is Jane and I am from Floating Concepts. We build structures on water.”

Pause. Usually, by this point, the delegate opposite was listening.

“We develop floating buildings. The residential ones are like floating penthouses; very aspirational, not at all like the alternative life style canal barges which most people think of as house boats. We also do hotels, restaurants and offices..”

After delivering this, the delegate opposite me either believed me, or didn’t.  Luckily, I had pictures from the brochure to hand, and whisking them out of my bag, I provided a visual image of one of our floating homes.

More often than not, the response to this was “Wow.”  After that holding their attention was easy. They were hooked on the idea

My first experience of speed networking had its ups and downs.  I met Dr Robert Quinn from Inka Renewable Energy who could assist us with pricing for using sustainable energy sources for our houseboats.  I also met Sian Fraser from the University of York who was advertising conference facilities which may be useful to us.

Then there were other delegates selling products such as skin creams; environmental audits; furniture training and a whole raft more that I can’t remember and which were of no immediate interest to us.  However, the convenience of speed networking meant that I only had to listen for 30 seconds to any delegate.  Every time I spoke for 30 seconds, regardless of who it was to, was time well spent.  Few of the other products were as innovative as ours? Whilst I didn’t go home and tell my family about the skin cream, I bet the person I spoke to went home and talked about Floating Concepts.

After the session ended, and we were allowed us to leave our seats, I had a chance to catch up with the delegates who had been of interest and then find  David who had wandered off after watching me for a few minutes. I found him heavily engrossed on a stand promoting ‘PR2GO’. He thought that they had a fantastic offer for handling PR. Apparently they employ over 30 journalists who write the copy for any potential press release material sent to them; you approve and then they distribute all for about sixty quid. We signed up and were given a bottle of champagne for doing so. By the time we left, we were laden with bags of samples (including champagne) and fresh, exciting ideas in our minds for future projects.  We now have an array of new leads to follow up on and already have a few appointments scheduled in the diary.  All in all, the day spent at the North West Exhibition was time well spent.

Author: Jane Wilby-Palmer

Sources:

http://www.businessnorthwest.co.uk/index.php

http://www.corkscrewevents.com/

http://www.businessgiftuk.quickorder.uk.com/

http://www.inkarenewableenergy.com/

http://www.yorkconferences.com/

http://www.pr2go.com/