Mike Samuels, of Great Oak Capital, gave a short overview of his seminar “The Seven Secrets of Successful Networking”, which he said was hard to condense into 10 minutes.  He therefore told the audience that, when attending a networking event, they should become a ‘resource’ and provide information to the people that they meet.

A networking event is not for selling, it is for collecting business cards and arranging to re-connect at a later date by email, telephone or text.  He urged attendees to utilise LinkedIn by congratulating their connections on anniversaries and birthdays, and by joining groups and updating their statuses.

Michael concluded by saying that it is not good to leave a network event early; it is a good idea to be there until the end, to be receptive to any approaches that are made and to obtain a guest list, as not everybody who registered to attend does so.

He also thanked the Chamber for giving him the opportunity of passing his message on to their members and said that, in 2015, he was hoping to expand this side of his business activities by delivering more seminars.