Silicon Valley is the place where the best of the best of the tech giants come in the same place. When you’re starting out a tech company or any company which needs attention from these giants there’s nothing better than a networking meeting. Networking meets not only allows you to get business proposals from the tech giants, but you can also get to know future prospective business partners and plan the progress of your company better. What better place to gain investments in your start-ups than the place where Apple and Facebook gained theirs.
Let’s be honest though, networking meets are no walk in the park. Planning out the whole thing and making sure that everyone gets equal access can be quite a task. So, we’ve prepared a step-by-step guide for smoothing over the edges in your plan so, that you can just charter a San Francisco tour bus rental and get on with it.
1. Great venue
Venues of all kinds are available in the sunny city of San Francisco. So, choosing can be a bit of a hassle. To make sure that the space you’re choosing suits you the best, make sure that you go through the accessibility of the venue and account for the small pitfalls that you might face.
The first question you need to ask is about where the venue you book should be. Dignitaries would be arriving by different modes of transports, and choosing a far-away place can be detrimental to your popularity. Another question is simply about how many people the venue can hold. Remember, your staff and you can only hold business meetings with a select number of people at one time, account for that when you send out invitations and book the venue.
Make sure your venue has a ramp and other accesses so, that the meeting can be arranged properly. Choose a proper setting for the meet as well. An urban setting is great for generating a work-like environment but, it puts constraints on the conversation, while, the rural setting can easily turn into a great work meet, but, usually has accessibility issues.
2. Group transports
Not all of your dignitaries would be able to arrange transportation to the venue. And even if they can, it’s rude to ask them to Uber to your venue. To make sure there’s more accessibility, account for the groups that’ll be arriving and prepare vehicles accordingly. A huge fleet of cars might not be recommended, since, navigation becomes a huge task.
Rent a bus instead, and go for group talks on the bus. This way you get access to the people you’ll be talking with all through the day and can break the ice from the get-go. Make sure to arrange for private transportation of some dignitaries, especially if you’re calling speakers. These speakers would need to be escorted the venue personally and would be the best way to plan out the process.
3. Plan networking time
You can’t possibly talk business while the keynote speaker has taken the stage. Make sure to arrange for an activity which encourages the conversation to smooth over the kinks in your networking time. For example – one of the industry-recommended ways to do business is through a wine-tasting ceremony.
However, plan according to your guests. Alcohol might not be great conversation-starter if you’re talking with religious people. On the other hand, a soiree means you’ve to account for dietary restrictions and preferences for each of your guests. You can check out more ways to interact and increase networking time.
Make sure to arrange these tidbits of meeting in between the speeches and the presentations. Account for how the crowd feels and pitch your ideas to the giants in the business to see how they react. Hopefully, you’ll end up with many more business contacts than you started out with.