Attendees Also Seek a Return on Their Investment
As you plan the agenda, make sure that you carve out time for networking.
As business leaders it is important that you receive a return on your investment (ROI); from marketing campaigns, employee training and corporate events. Consider this: attendees feel the same. When they come your event, they are leaving behind their regular daily responsibilities, which often requires additional work before and after the event to stay on top of their jobs. Therefore, attendees are also looking for the ROI of coming to the event. Providing them with great information, tools and industry trends is an important component of the event, however, so is networking. Following are five tips for providing great networking opportunities:
5 Ways to Incorporate Networking into Your Event
1.
Advance planning. Provide your attendees with the agenda showing the time allotted for networking events. Encourage them to bring ample business cards to share. If you are having a Q&A session with the executive team, advise them to prepare questions they would like to pose to the company leaders. Suggest they call other attendees they are interested in meeting and schedule time for a coffee before the day's events or a beverage at the end of the day.
2.
Round table discussions. A great way to learn and share best practice learning between attendees is by having round table discussions. Assign one corporate leader to facilitate the discussion at each table (also to take notes to bring back to the executive team) and pose open-ended business questions to stimulate the conversation. This is also a great way to connect newer attendees with more seasoned participants. Check out this guide to planning a
successful round table discussion
.
3.
Icebreakers. You can actually make networking part of the agenda by incorporating a few light-hearted, yet effective icebreakers. For example, for larger events, use a polling method where you ask people to stand if they agree with a series of statements.
- Stand if you have a dog.
- Stand if you have traveled to Europe.
- Stand if you have more than four siblings.
These fun facts will help identify people in the group that you may want to chat with during a break to learn more. Check out these
70 Icebreaker ideas for business
4.
Business card competition. Ask attendees to bring a lot of extra cards to the event. During one of the sessions designated for networking, encourage the group to meet as many people as possible, collecting their business card. Offer a prize to the person who collects the most during a designated amount of time. However, to make the exercise more meaningful, require they learn one fact about that person (note the info on their card so they remember) that pertains to business or the theme of the event. Encourage attendees to reach out to those people after the event to help build their network.
5.
Team building exercises. Incorporating a team building exercise into your agenda is another way for people to learn more about each other as well as work together for a common goal. A popular team building exercise is a golf event. Check out these tips for
planning a corporate golf outing. If your event is being held near a recreational location (i.e. Disney World, Universal, etc.) have attendees break into small groups (4-6). Attendees can enjoy the amusement park but also add a scavenger component where they have to take pictures of certain rides, characters, foods or places within the park. First group back, wins. For more team building ideas check out this article:
36 Corporate Team Building Event ideas
.
