It goes without saying that business networking in 2020 during the wake of Covid-19 has been a challenge. In the past I typically would attend on average more than two events a month. This year I have not been to any public events since mid-March and here it is nearly the beginning of November.

One strategy is to take this time to reach out and have a few one-on-one conversations with some of the folks in your current database. After all half of the trick to successful business networking is follow up and that’s where most of us drop the ball. So pull out that stack of business cards or work through your LinkedIn contact list to mine some of that gold hiding in plain sight.

Keep in mind that good follow-up is not all about hitting someone over the head with your sales pitch. How about just calling to see if they are holding up alright in this environment?  See if they are facing any specific business challenges or if they have identified any new business opportunities as a result of working from home. Make a connection and build your relationship. That is the key to good networking.

There are many business networking events taking place online. This week I attended the Chicago edition of the Virtual Small Business Expo.  This organizer puts on roughly one event a week each centered in a different U.S. city. But what is cool about the virtual version is that you can attend them all regardless of where you live with no travel costs. If you have a product or services that can be sold remotely what a great networking opportunity.

At the Chicago event I met about 15 new people. Moshe Wolf offers I/T support on the far north side of Chicago and I just happened to have a good contact for him that I was happy to share. Jeffrey Stein is a media relations professional and avid Toastmaster. We have one friend in common who I happened to remember is also a member of the Professional Toastmasters Group that meets in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook.  Ashley Lyle is a web designer out of Detroit but is also involved with a Black Literature and Art Network which I thought was a good fit with my client and friend Regina Harris-Biaocchi who is a noted African American Composer and Author. I also seemed to hit-it-off with Tehilla Newman, a networking ninja and salesperson at-large who is looking for the right sales opportunity. She and I had a great follow-up conversation by phone today and established what I think will be a good friendship and potential alliance.

I’m looking forward to another follow-up conversation next week with cardio health specialist Judy Feldhausen who incidentally has a number of interesting videos on youtube demonstrating healthy food preparation options.

One really fun conversation was the last of the day with Shawn Shapiro a business strategist from Minnesota and Shola Elerewe a data analyst from London.  We just had a nice talk about life, business, and how cool it was that the three of us could learn about each other meeting face-to-face via the Internet across thousands of miles and several time zones.

The nice thing about online networking in this environment is the fact that you can see the person you are speaking with, which makes a deeper connection. Maybe this will require you to step outside your comfort zone but what’s really nice is that you do not have to step outside you home office.

I’m planning to attend a few more of these Small Business Expo events in the coming weeks and months so look for me at the roundtables or speed networking sessions.