At an in-person networking event you wouldn't just attend not to network. Or would you? Normally everyone is there for a purpose, even if they haven't totally defined that purpose, they have a vague idea why they are there. Wouldn't that work same for iNetworking? Yep.

Yet...

Weekly I receive emails and phone calls how someone wants to connect with me in some way.

Yet...

They have no idea on what. No suggestions, no inklings, no possible thoughts, nada. I'm always baffled when I receive these. I don't have time to educate people because they surely do need it. A few emails even add their web site URL link or suggest that I visit their web site to learn what they do and "figure it out for them."

For folks reading this who have done this and wondered why their email doesn't get a response or gets a quick response of "sounds great," or "you can sell my new product or become my affiliate if you'd like" -- knock, knock, anyone home up there. People have told me that when they receive get these responses back, it confuses them. Talk about confused, how about person receiving them.

It’s so much easier to either don't write or say what you really mean. Simply, say why you are writing, this is what you do, this is what I do, and here are some possibilities for us? You can even set this up in a signature file in Outlook and make it a quick send.

Everything is a mirror. If you want to iNetwork state who you are, what you offer, or give clues and ideas of possibilities. Don't place burden on receiver to figure it out.

This brings us to rule number one in iNetworking. Be prepared. Don't be one that has a great service or product but doesn't know who gatekeepers are or who buyers and strategic partners are for your products or services. Gatekeepers are people that know your more of your buyers, strategic partners are people that you are going to do something joint and temporary with to provide better value for both your customers.

If you went to an in-person networking event you wouldn't forget your business cards, or would you? If you attended an in-person networking event would you not bring flyers for your next workshop, not know benefits of your product or service, or not know who is your ideal client. If you did, it would be a social event and not a networking event.

The same holds true with iNetworking. Have your business card set up for an easy email send, set a signature file in Outlook or whatever email software you use, have your workshop flyer in pdf (Adobe) format, in an auto responder, designed for a embedded text email and HTML email (embedded means not as an attachment but as email itself). In other words, have all same materials that you would create for an in-person networking event available for deliver via Internet in multiple delivery formats.

The promotion of my book began with submitting a press release (PR) to one of major PR services on internet. They tracked how many click throughs received, and I began to think, if so many eyes are looking at PR on this site and web crawlers (whatever those are?) are picking up PR for other sites; what would limit me from submitting as many PRs as possible? This was not only site that provided this wonderful FREE service and more places I had PR, greater my chances of being picked up by “big” media. My imagination began to go wild, conjuring up that lone journalist who was itching to break story on next bestseller. You chuckle! With this PR service, I placed needle in haystack but I could improve my chances if many needles were placed. A technique I learned from my days of online sweeping. What is that you ask? If allowed, more you entered a particular sweepstakes better your chances of winning as was one man’s story where he would send out literally thousands of entries and had won valuable prizes. My odds with sweeping were not that stellar but I do have a few trinkets to show for limited efforts. Hopefully, with my quadrupled book promotion efforts I could have stellar results—dreaming again. Tip 1: There are auto-fill internet form software available and some even designate a few empty fields for your own personal use. A lifesaver when you have to input PR summary line more than a few times. Tip 2: Don’t input your social security number and credit card information because I have read of mistakes made because of ease of auto-fill. Okay, I have deviated. So I proceed to use my internet service provider and searched for “submit press release” and was in heaven when it responded with 2 million sites to upload my PR. I would spend hours determining which sites were free; which maybe more receptive; and which needed me to tweak PR. Then just as quickly, my dream was shattered. I couldn’t go any further than 250 links, Why can’t I see or go to other sites? I contacted my internet service provider to complain and they “allegedly” helped me to fix browser. That didn’t work, so I moved on to next major internet service provider, and again was limited to how many links I could access.