Soar to Success June 2020

Socially Distant Networking Rules T he COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for business people and their networking efforts. In person events ended abruptly. Many businesses stopped operating or decreased their operations drastically. This raises two questions. 1. What can we do right now to connect and relationship build? 2. What will in-person networking look like in the future? Let’s start with what to do right now. Thanks to technology we are still able to meet ‘in- person.’ Okay, it’s virtual. And, it’s still possible to connect with others. Once we decide we can, and want to, continue our networking efforts we can set a plan in action. Start with reaching out to your current community. Keep your intent simple – find out how they are doing. That’s the first, most important question right now. Make it a priority to do a quick check on everyone. Next, you can decide to schedule weekly or bi-monthly virtual video calls with a group of people. Invite a bunch of people who you think could benefit from conversation. Pick a topic By Diane Helbig