It’s no secret that in-person networking is critical to growing your business and your career.

Effective networking has a number of key ingredients. The not all inclusive list includes:

1. Getting Attention...
2. Having a good story ...
3. Does your business card make an impact?
4. Networking Event Follow-Up SOP

and you can always take the guidelines suggested by Keith Ferrazi, master networker, in his book, Never Eat Alone.

Now, when networking you you never get a second chance. to make a first impression and that is even more true when you are trying to establish a meaningful relationship with an “influencer” in your industry.

I was thinking about this last night as I attended a networking event last night with Robert Scoble,one of the Internet’s major influencers/thought leaders

(I’ve blogged about him a few times: Scoble's Peak?, PR in the Web 2.0 Era, Twitter Fatigue..., and most notably, based on his fantastic book on the value of blogging...)

Now, here’s where I messed up.

Prior to the event, I was rushing and I didn’t answer the question:

“what’s my elevator pitch/story for Scoble?”

Honestly, I didn’t even think I’d talk to him, figuring there’d be a ton of people (there were), so I didn’t have it completely ready when I walked in and within 20 seconds, turned around, and had Scoble stick his hand out to me and say “hey, I’m Robert…”

Now, it wasn’t a total disaster, but it probably wasn’t my absolute “A” game.

The question: did I give him something that would stick?

I give him credit though, he’s a very personable guy, asks questions, and listens. (When you are connected as he is, you expect a certain ego…absent in Scoble).

He also looks thinner in person than the picture on his blog (yes, I told him that).

Well, the life of perpetual beta is to learn from your mistakes and I was mulling how I would do it differently, preparing for a blog post.

Good news, Pam over at Cubicle Nation did it for me/you. Right on.

Photo credit: (cc) Shashi Bellamkonda www.shashi.name and www.solutionsarepower.com

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