Networking for Survival During the Holidays

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Tue, 12/21/2010

Every season brings with it a different flow of business and social trends. No matter how hard you try, there is nothing you can do to prevent people from taking time off to be with their families, to go away on vacation or to go back to their home town for the holidays. As business transactions screech to a halt in many industries, due to the upcoming two week holiday period, it doesn’t mean that your relationship building has to stop as well.

In fact, now, is in many cases, a better time than ever to get to know people on a more personal and social basis, which ultimately may increase opportunities for business growth. Going to holiday parties? Make sure you have business cards with you. You never know who’s friend may be the perfect connection.

Be prepared to give suggestions to people on how to start the new year off right. Remember, it is a time for giving, which should be your basis for networking to begin with. So that means it is all about them, not you. What are their challenges? Can you connect them to some of your networking partners? Is there work you can do on their behalf? All this work will come back to you in time- believe it!

Now is a great time for making plans for the first couple of weeks of January. If you wait until the first week of January to contact people for meetings, whether it is business or social, you may not set those meetings until after the 15th of the month, meaning a loss of another two weeks of time. Plan it out now who you should call between now and the 31st of December. If all the other people are not making contact during these two weeks, the people you want to connect with may be very available to talk and/or set an appointment. And in many cases the company gatekeeper may be away from the office!

Looking for work? All of the above applies to you too! Now is the perfect time to get through directly to the decision maker. Go for it! Don’t be surprised if you are twice as successful networking for survival during this next two week period than any other two week period of the year. Most of all, enjoy the holidays, be safe and the best of luck in 2011!

What are your challenges when it comes to networking? I look forward to hearing your comments.

Until next time …