Plan Your Meetings

Beyond networking

No one plans, organizes and executes a meeting in a vacuum; it takes collaboration and cooperation. The stronger the relationships, the smoother things will go — and the better the end product will be for the client or for your company if you’re an inside corporate planner.

Networking is an important aspect of meeting planning, and focuses on your own and/or your company’s needs. “NetWeaving” is a concept that adds another dimension; it seeks to help the other person first, emphasizing the belief that “what goes around, comes back around.”

Many of the most successful meeting planners, as well as vendors and suppliers, have built their businesses with this concept — acting as a connector, a “no-strings-attached” resource and an information-provider for others without any thought for how it would come back around to benefit them — though it almost always does.

Here are some strategies and skill sets for going beyond traditional networking to become a “NetWeaver.”

In conversations and communication with others, in addition to being tuned-in to determine if there are ways this person might help you or your company (i.e. natural and instinctive networking), learn to listen with these questions in mind: Is there someone I know who would benefit from meeting this person? Could this person provide information or resources to someone else I know? Has this person impressed me so much that I need to get to know her or him better?

These basic questions tie into the three skill sets involved in being a consummate “NetWeaver”:

1. You enjoy connecting people, keeping their needs, challenges and opportunities in mind rather than just your own.
2. You have learned to position yourself within your network (internal and external) as a “go-to” person who readily provides information and resources to others.
3. You have assembled a trusted resource network of people who are exceptional at what they do and are constantly looking for others, either those with whom you have worked, or those who come highly recommended.

With permission from Catherine Ryan Hyde, the author of the book “Pay It Forward,” on which the popular movie of the same name is based, NetWeaving is the business version of the idea Hyde identified in her title. That’s because, when you help someone by connecting them with someone who can help fulfill a particular need, or by supplying them with something they need, they almost always ask how they can repay you. You simply ask them to ‘pay it forward’ and do the same for someone else.

NetWeavers learn how to ‘host’ meetings to introduce two other people either virtually over the Internet or by phone, or at an in-person meeting. Here’s a quick script summary:

“John, as you and I were talking, I just thought of someone who you really need to meet – Mary Brown. Why don’t you send me your bio and a little information on your company, and I’ll forward that on to Mary with a note from me as to why I believe the two of you would really benefit from meeting each other. And then (when, not if), the two of you get together, let me know the date and time, and if my schedule will permit, I’ll join you.”

The people who have embraced NetWeaving report that after finding how easy this is, they have no trouble setting up three or four virtual hosting meetings a week and some do as many as 10 or more.

If you’re hesitant or time-stressed, try hosting at least one in-person meeting a week. After introducing the two people you have brought together and giving a brief overview of the NetWeaving concept (see netweaving.com for free information and a quiz to see how you score as a NetWeaver), you basically sit back and listen as they discover ways to help each other and people they know in common whom they never would have realized had you not made this connection.

With all the players who must collaborate to produce a successful meeting, NetWeaving fits the relationship-based business of meeting and event planning. It also fits today’s increasing social awareness and desire to give back in our business, as well as our personal, lives.

Bob Littell is the creator of the NetWeaving concept and author of two books on the topic, “Power NetWeaving,” co-authored with Donna Fisher, and “The Heart and Art of NetWeaving,” self-published and printed by Xerox Global Services (all proceeds from this book go to charity). His website is netweaving.com.