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Trust Network Parties and How They Help Your Consulting Practice

By crooky | December 7, 2007

If you’re an established consultant who has been working in your industry for more than five years, you should have a sizable rolodex by now. At an intuitive level, you know that there is value in this trust network that you’ve established. Invariably, you’ll get stuck at the point where you need to figure out how to monetize your trust network. A trust network party is a great way to make sure that the best minds in your network get to network with one another, come up with ideas for projects and do so while enjoying your hospitality. What is a “trust network party”? It’s when you book a venue, bring lots of booze and appetizers and invite everyone in your substantial rolodex to come and network with everyone else you know.

This time of year is chock full of parties but there’s always a lull in January that you could start planning a great even for now. Before we get into the logistics of planning a party of this nature, let’s talk about why they’re a good idea. How do you find new projects to work on right now? Most of us try “networking” which, if not done properly, has a lower success rate than cold-calling but can be an order of magnitude more expensive in terms of your time and energy.

There are referrals - which are good. There’s advertising and there’s responding to Requests for Proposals. Referrals are probably the best method because your current and former clients can establish a qualified lead for your business, increasing the number of paying customers you can obtain. All of the other methods involve you getting on bended knee and asking someone for something. You’re at a disadvantage already. The beautiful thing about a trust network party is that you’re not going to your network asking for something - you’re doing something for them. Collectively, your trust network will benefit more than you will from coming to this networking event.

Whether consciously or not, your guests will add goodwill to your trust bank and as they mingle with your other friends and colleagues, will be thinking of you while they talk about potential projects they want to undertake in future. In my modest experience with these kinds of events - you will probably be approached by a number of potential clients during the course of the party.

That’s the why. Here’s the how:

1. Venue

You need to pick a venue with lots of open space, good lighting, the ability to pick your own caterers and to set up your own bar. Community halls are a great place to start. They tend to be affordable and flexible in what they allow you to do. You also need to make sure that there’s lots of space. The three parties of this kind that I’ve been to had more than 100 people at them. You need about that many people to stack the odds in your favour. Make sure the venue also has ample free or cheap parking nearby. Bars and hotels make for terrible venues for this kind of thing. Also don’t pick a venue that’s too far away from downtown or wherever most of your clients are located. Proximity to transit is good.

2. Timing

Year-end is good but not too close to Christmas because people have other commitments. I also think that January is a good time to throw one of these because there’s a lot less going on at this time of year. Summer is terrible because too many people are on vacation. Also do it on a work night mid-week. Proximity to the weekends will kill attendance as well. After work seems to work best but not too soon after work or people will show up late. Try 6pm.

3. Food and drinks

Good food and drink makes for a good party. Take some time in selecting the caterer and make sure that you don’t need to spend much time yourself serving your guests. You don’t want to serve a full meal - just appetizers. Booze is very important. Make sure you have lots. At the last party like this I was at, we had five cases of wine (60 bottles of red and white) and about three dozen bottles of beer. At the end of the night, we had five or six bottles of wine left and a few bottles of beer. We did run out of glasses a half hour before the night was over and if that hadn’t have happened, I have my doubts if there would have been any leftovers.

4. The Guests

Make sure that your guest list is populated by current clients, past clients (within say… the last two years), clients that you’ve been trying to secure and people from sectors that you want to do more work with (such as Government or Non-Profits).

5. The Invitations

Make sure that people know the event is “by invitation only”. It will make them feel exclusive which is true unless your rolodex is full of people you don’t know and don’t care about. Invite people about a month in advance so that they have time to plan but not so far in advance that better opportunities will come up. Make sure that invitations go out to individuals. Don’t send a mass mailing with no personalization to it. Buy some list management software if you have to.

About a week before the event, send out a reminder to the people you have invited but include a list of the companies and organizations that have already RSVP’d. My colleague Geoff Hansen uses this technique and it always generates a spike in RSVPs the week before an event. Publishing the list of confirmed attendees is a bit like name dropping and might convince someone who was sitting on the fence or planning not to come to change their mind because they want to meet the people on your list.

Make sure you also include an agenda for the evening if you’re going to be speaking or asking your guests to do anything other than mingle.

6. The Day of the Event

Make sure you get some of your colleagues to help you out. Print up name tags for the people who RSVP’d. Get your spouse or your significant other to come help you host. Get volunteers to help. Most of all, make sure that everything is ready to go before the event so that there are no surprises on the big day.

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In summary, you could throw a party like the one I’ve described for about $5000 if you got a friend to bartend for you and only about 150 people attended. If your day rates are $500 (for example), securing only 10 days of extra work in that year would pay for the event. In my experience, that kind of return on investment is easily achievable if you throw a good trust network party.

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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Business of Consulting |

3 Responses to “Trust Network Parties and How They Help Your Consulting Practice”

  1. Aaron Cruikshank Says:
    December 9th, 2007 at 3:40 am

    My friends over at FreelanceSwitch.com wrote an interesting article about individual conduct at functions where clients, staff and alchohol mix. It’s worth a read and made me think about situations where people at trust network parties I’ve attended have behaved badly.

    http://freelanceswitch.com/humour/when-your-client-invites-you-to-a-christmas-party/

    I’ve had a few people at these events have a few too many but they’d be in the minority and as long as they didn’t try to drive home, haven’t caused any serious problems.

  2. Alison Says:
    December 11th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    An interesting take on networking. Hopefully having a room full of people you know would accelerate the conversations past typical networking small talk and get you real connections (the obvious goal). Thanks for sharing.

  3. crooky Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    In my experience, this works. I think the key to success is to make sure that you seed to room with people you’ve worked with before and introduce people to one another strategically.

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