Actually, no it's not. If you're in a chapter that distributes 'lunch bunch' assignments, don't ever miss out on meeting other chapter members one-on-one. If you belong to a chapter that thinks it's unnecessary to have such a thing, too bad for you.
This is one of the most important activities to accomplish within your chapter each and every month. What do we always say? It's all about Know, Like, and Trust. What better way to quickly get to know, like, and trust someone than to spend at least an hour of one-on-one time with them?
It's very difficult to know everything there is to know about another person's business when you only hear a 30-second commercial weekly and maybe when that person is the featured speaker a couple of times throughout the year.
If you're the Social chairperson for your chapter, don't ever neglect getting this out at the beginning of each new month. Also implore your chapter members to not only meet with their assigned partner, but choose someone else in the group you'd like to know better. Or even seek out members from other chapters to meet. What a concept! You might generate a cross chapter referral or be better able to refer business back to someone in your own chapter.
The more chances you give yourself to interact with others the more successful you will be as a networker. So why limit yourself? Also, don't make your lunch bunch forms too complicated. It really just boils down to having two columns with member names listed across from each other. Keep rotating one column until everyone in both columns meets one another, then re-shuffle the list.
One last piece of advice. The next time you meet with your lunch partner for the month, I challenge each of you to come up with at least one referral for each other over the course of your meeting. Think about it, how many more referrals could your chapter generate if this happened at every lunch bunch meeting throughout the year. A 16 person chapter would generate 192 additional referrals. That's more than half of what some chapters accomplished in 2007.
This is one of the most important activities to accomplish within your chapter each and every month. What do we always say? It's all about Know, Like, and Trust. What better way to quickly get to know, like, and trust someone than to spend at least an hour of one-on-one time with them?
It's very difficult to know everything there is to know about another person's business when you only hear a 30-second commercial weekly and maybe when that person is the featured speaker a couple of times throughout the year.
If you're the Social chairperson for your chapter, don't ever neglect getting this out at the beginning of each new month. Also implore your chapter members to not only meet with their assigned partner, but choose someone else in the group you'd like to know better. Or even seek out members from other chapters to meet. What a concept! You might generate a cross chapter referral or be better able to refer business back to someone in your own chapter.
The more chances you give yourself to interact with others the more successful you will be as a networker. So why limit yourself? Also, don't make your lunch bunch forms too complicated. It really just boils down to having two columns with member names listed across from each other. Keep rotating one column until everyone in both columns meets one another, then re-shuffle the list.
One last piece of advice. The next time you meet with your lunch partner for the month, I challenge each of you to come up with at least one referral for each other over the course of your meeting. Think about it, how many more referrals could your chapter generate if this happened at every lunch bunch meeting throughout the year. A 16 person chapter would generate 192 additional referrals. That's more than half of what some chapters accomplished in 2007.
