Never make a sales pitch as the way you introduce yourself. What you CAN say is how you help people and businesses.

Ask people you know if they can introduce you to someone you are specifically looking to meet.

For gosh sakes, it’s not a horse race as to how many business cards you can fling out there! What a turn-off.

All the time and effort put into networking can be all for naught if there is no follow-through. The same goes for sales. And leadership. And … well, everything.

In Writing: be attentive enough to detail to spell the person’s name correctly. My name is misspelled all the time; Ramsay with an AY, not an EY. It’s not much of a personal follow-up if the recipient feels insignificant.

People will follow someone as a leader, who has vision and purpose; often that leader doesn’t wear a title.

If you are uncomfortable meeting people on your own, the perfect way to do it is to volunteer to help greet those who arrive. This way, you have a purposeful task that is meeting people. Be sure to wear your name tag (on the right side of your body, please) and have business cards at the ready.

It’s great to spend time at a networking event with someone you know and like. But that’s not what you’re there for. Your goal is to expand your network by meeting new people.

Great leaders build trust from their team because the leader is willing to put his/her people “first.” Once the team believes that, they will put their leader, and the company, first as well.

This is not new: people do business with people they like, know and trust. Taking that axiom in to account, would YOU trust YOU?