One of the best ways to build your greeting card business is to meet other people at networking events and explain your business.  Briefly, here are three ways to approach a networking opportunity.

1.  Be interested in other people.  You might think a networking event is an opportunity to talk all about yourself.  It is important to be able to succinctly explain your greeting card business, however, it’s even more important to simply meet other people and let them talk about themselves.  Then, you can follow up AFTER the networking event, by sending them one of your cards! 

2.  Set an easy goal.  A bad goal for a networking event is to go with the idea of slapping your business card into as many hands as possible.  It won’t get you any results.  A good plan is to go to a networking event with a goal of meeting a certain number of new people.  Perhaps a goal of meeting only five new people that you can follow up with about your business after the event. 

3.  Once you’ve met your goal, leave.  Unless you have loads of free time, you don’t need to stay for an entire event.  Say hello to people you already know, and follow through on your goal to build the stub of a relationship with a certain number of people.  Once you’ve met your “quota”, you can leave.  If it means you only stay 45 minutes, that’s fine!  Who ever said you have to stay for the whole event?  You’re going to have plenty of work to follow up with those five people in the next couple of weeks anyways! 

By following those three simple guidelines, you can make a networking event a productive activity that can help you build your greeting card business!