SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORKING 2022: SAY "HELLO" & CATCH UP IN PERSON

SUPPLY CHAIN NETWORKING 2022

SAY "HELLO" & CATCH UP IN PERSON

Pay for what you order. No entry fee.

CEL is excited to announce an in-person networking event to kick off 2022 among the Supply Chain Community. The social networking will start at 5:30 PM at Belgo D3 (Belgian Craft Beer Brewery), followed by roundtable discussions on topics across Logistics, Warehousing, Digital SCM, Demand Planning and Procurement etc. Join our discussions and enjoy the food, drinks and great networking in person!

Active networking is vital to career growth. Effective networking can have lots of benefits on your career, including:

1. Strengthen business contacts and connections.

Networking is about sharing, not taking. It is about forming trust and helping one another toward goals. Regularly engaging with your contacts and finding opportunities to assist them helps to strengthen the relationship. By doing this, you sow the seeds for mutual assistance. This can be done by referring contacts for roles that you hear about, forwarding articles relevant to their interests or career, arranging introductions with mutual contacts and simply congratulating your networks via LinkedIn when they reach a career milestone or get a new job.

2. Get fresh ideas

Your network can be an excellent source of new perspectives and ideas to help you in your job. Exchanging information on challenges, experiences, best practices, business techniques, and goals is crucial for networking because it allows you to gain new insights from collective experience. Similarly, offering helpful ideas to a contact is an excellent way to build your reputation as an innovative thinker.

3. Advance your career

Being visible and getting noticed is a benefit of networking that’s essential in building your career. Regularly attending professional and social events will help build up your professional profile, which keeps you top of mind when new opportunities and job openings arise. Professional networking opens many doors in the form of career advice, lasting relationships, and even landing your dream job.

4. Build confidence

By continually putting yourself out there and meeting new people, you’re effectively stepping outside your comfort zone and building invaluable social skills and self-confidence that you can take with you anywhere. The more you network, the more you’ll grow and learn how to make lasting connections.

5. Develop long-lasting personal relationships

Of course, networking is to develop and nurture professional relationships, but some of the strongest friendships are borne from work connections. Your networking contacts are probably like-minded people with similar goals as your own, so it’s not unlikely that your professional support network will spill over into your personal friendships.

When attending a networking attempt, remember to:

Be prepared

If you are the networking event host, make sure you have all the necessary materials ready, such as name badges, business cards, and brochures about your business. If you’re attending an external networking event, make sure you have something to contain all the business cards you collect. If you get flustered when talking to people, try to rehearse what you’ll say beforehand.

Set yourself a target

A networking event is not a social gathering – you are there to achieve something. Set yourself a target, such as the number of people you want to talk to or be introduced to. If the number is 10 or 15 people, make sure you leave with 10 or 15 business cards.

Don’t focus on selling

Remember: Networking is about developing relationships – so don’t try to close a deal. You’re not there to do business or secure a job. You’re there to meet valuable contacts. Your main focus should be getting to know more people and their contact information to work with them in the future potentially, so avoid any sales pitches or business propositions.

Talk and listen

You’ve got to talk to people, and you also need to listen to what the other person is saying. Often, networking isn’t just about fulfilling your objectives but also about helping others fulfill theirs. Maintain eye contact with the other person when they are talking and ask meaningful follow-up questions to show that you have been paying attention. Be genuine and authentic in your communication, and you will likely leave a lasting impression on your new contact.