Five tips for successful networking groups

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

People, events, traditions  – everything comes and goes at some point, very few things remain unchanged over time.

The same is true of networking groups. Anecdotally, attendance for most groups has yet to get back to pre-COVID levels and a number have met their demise. However, those groups that have managed to adapt have survived, and some have even thrived.

One such networking group (a not-for-profit one) of which I’m a member of is in danger of fading from existence, so at a recent meeting, we sought the advice of an experienced networker who had set up and run a number of groups himself over the years.

Here are his five tips to running a successful networking group.

1. Commitment is paramount

Life is busy – we all have competing demands on our time.

Money talks though – it’s the same with everything else in life; if you’ve invested financially in something, then there’s an opportunity cost to not following through.

So, consider some form of upfront payment, which will help to ensure commitment

2. Automatic attendance

Chairing a not-for-profit networking group can be a thankless task, so effort needs to be made to streamline the bane of everybody’s life – administration!

Automatic attendance is a quick win and ties in with Point 1 (upfront payment); i.e. you’re automatically down to attend for the following month unless you indicate otherwise.

3. Don’t have open groups

For-profit networking groups have their own websites covered by membership fees, whereas not-for-profit groups do not.

This is where e-mail can become a disadvantage, since inevitably people hit ‘Reply to All’ in response to the initial invitation, creating:

i. a long trail which takes ages to scroll through

ii. potential confusion

iii. negativity, if enough people say they’re not going to attend.

4. An organised communication system & a set agenda

Some suggestions:

• Use standardised templates for emails
• Immediately post-meeting: send out a follow-up email (this could be thanking attendees or guests / brief synopsis of the meeting / reminder for the next meeting date + topic)
• 1 week post-meeting: send out an advance note of next meeting (this could prompt people who know they won’t be attending to invite a guest)
• 1 week pre-next meeting: send out a reminder

Note that the emails can all be standardised and set to be sent out at prescribed times.

On the day, it’s useful to have a standard meeting agenda (we used to do this in our group back in the day!), which keeps the meeting on track, giving suitable time to the chair, the attendees and any presenters.

The agenda can of course be altered for specific meetings.

5. A unique point of contact

Following on from Point 4 (An organised communication system), somebody needs to be ultimately in charge.

Larger networking groups have committees, covering the various functions, whereas smaller networking groups can usually get by with a chair and a vice-chair.

Conclusion

So, 2024 looks like being make or break for this networking group.

However, we’ll seek to enact these five proposals and see how it goes with an arbitrary six-month timeline to measure its success.

Watch this space!