If You're Not Inviting, You're Missing Out

Inviting prospective referral sources to an event you’re attending, hosting or participating in as a featured guest, exhibitor, panel speaker or award recipient is a great way to enhance your contact with them and build credibility.

If you’re not inviting your prospective referral sources to events, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to keep them informed of activities you’re involved in. When the event is one where you have a chance to share your expertise or where you are being recognized for an achievement, using this tactic contributes to building your credibility and image as a successful and knowledgeable professional. This tactic also helps acquaint your targets with others in your network and transforms strictly business relationships into friendships.

If you haven’t been inviting prospective sources to events and you’re not sure whom to invite or how to invite them, here are some tips to get you started:

Make a list of the events you’ll be attending and a list of network members you might invite.
With plenty of lead time, call or write each prospective source to invite him or her to the event; explain the reason for the invitation.
Pay your network member’s admission fee, if there is one.
Make sure the event offers benefits to your prospective sources, such as an opportunity to meet someone they admire, to be entertained or to be recognized.
Whenever possible, allow your guests to invite guests of their own.
It’s OK to invite people you do not expect to attend. Remember, one of your aims is to keep your sources informed of what you are doing.

So, what events are you attending in the coming weeks? Make use of the tips above and make it your goal to invite someone to each event you attend from here on out. Chances are you’ll not only reap some great benefits, you’ll probably enjoy the event even more with your network member along.

6 thoughts on “If You’re Not Inviting, You’re Missing Out”

Ivan, great post. One of the things I always preach is the power of the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber by itself is not the greatest place to get business from, in fact it’s one of the worst places because everyone is there with one thing in mind, how do I get business for myself? If I stab enough people in the chest with my business card one will eventually stick. After toughing it out as a member of the Chamber I sat down and started thinking, there has to be a way to get business from the Chamber.

Being a member of BNI, I decided I would attend Chamber events and not promote my business at all, I would attend these events and ask a lot of questions and find out how I could help that person out. I figured if I could INVITE them to a BNI event and they join, I have the opportunity to develop a relationship with them, get business sometime down the road and hopefully generate business for the rest of my group.

Being a member of the Chamber of Commerce is a good thing if you use it to invite people to your BNI chapter. It has worked for me.

A good method of marketing your self.

I totally agree – more credibility can be built in 5 minutes of down time than 5 weeks of uptime. I invite clients to lunch, coffee, events and we’ve even taken them overseas – this makes for excellent and lasting relationships. It also creates a great conversation topic when you catch up again.

Thanks