How Will They Be Developed?

The open type business networking sessions  will be developed with 75 people who confirmed their participation. Such a session will take place in four steps: 

• a small ten-minutes  training session to get you familiar with the concept and to help you learn how to use the “elevator pitch” technique and to develop a technique of classification and selection of the opportunities that are relevant in such sessions.
• at the beginning of each open session  3 presentations are held by a number of startups who accessed the STARTUP+ programme, with the intention of receiving feedback and even maybe of finding potential partners, co-workers, providers, customers or mentors in the room.
• then  a number of short presentations no longer than 45-60 seconds will be held, when everybody introduces himself/herself to the others using the elevator pitch. Through these presentations, each attendant will try to deliver some information to the public in the room to help them identify any potential areas of collaboration.
• then a number of free interactions will follow, when each attendant may talk to those people identified for potential collaboration.

Who Are the Addressees?

• The open type sessions are designed for anybody interested in developing his/her business networking skills, for those interested in enhancing their circle of contacts, in interacting with other people, for those in search of new career or business development opportunities, for those interested in developing the spirit of association.
• Equally they are designed for the young, being a good opportunity to meet other people and to develop public speaking skills.

Who May Attend?

•  Anybody who registered in the Business Days may attend, as the session is held as part of that programme,  provided that (s)he ticked to attend the open type business networking sessions, then (s)he selected one day or both days.
• The attendance is conditional on  confirmation of attendance sent by e-mail, sms or on the event site, when so requested by the organization team.
• Those who failed to tick the option to attend during the registration term may register by calling directly the assistance team or on the event site, provided that there are still available places.
• For the open type business networking sessions, the first- come first-served rule will apply. 

How Are Selected the Guests for an Open-Type Session?

• The first rule is to register on the open session short lists by ticking the relevant option on the registration form second page.
• The second rule is to confirm attendance within 24 hours by sms, e-mail or telephone,
• The first to be contacted are the first 75 guests that registered for each day, then the rest are contacted every 24 hours until all the places are taken in the two sessions.
• If the places are not taken, it will be advertised during the event term and anybody willing to register can do it on site.
• The rule is first-come first-served. The places are limited and the maximum number of 100 guests shall not be exceeded, owing to the session limited time.
• For the open-type sessions and the small meetings, there are no other kind of restrictions.

How to Get Prepared for an Open Session?

• First, bring a  suitable number of business cards ; it is recommendable to have on you around 100 business cards.
• Second, get ready a business networking strategy and writing tools  to help you in the contact picking process (warm, lukewarm and cold contacts);
• Third, bring a well prepared elevator pitch  that you previously practised focusing on: your business field, your company, the position you hold in the company, what makes you different from the competition, what leverage can you offer to customers, how and with what can you help those in the room, what are you looking for and what king of help do you need;

What To Do after an Open Session?

• Contact the warm contacts  with whom you did not get in touch directly at the event
• Contact the lukewarm contacts within two weeks after the event on e-mail or telephone and try to appoint a meeting to have a detailed talk about the opportunities to help each other
• Enter the obtained contact details in CRM (if you have this tool) and try to get in touch on LinkedIn
• Adjust your presentation  according to the received feedbacks, so that next time you may achieve a better impact.
• Keep the business cards on your archive, once you entered them in CRM (if you have this tool)

Elevator pitch

• It is a brief and relevant message about yourself, about the company you are representing, about what you do in your business field, what makes you different from the competition, what is the added value that you may bring to customers, what can you do to help those listening to you, what are you looking for.  In order to have an impact the message should be clear, focused, interesting, remarkable, easy to remember and customized.

Contact Selection

It is recommendable that each person you meet should be placed in one of the following three categories:

• prospect/warm contact
• prospect/lukewarm contact
• prospect/cold contact

In the warm category you should enter those in whom you found the most similar inclinations, opportunities to work together, to cooperate, shared interests or the opportunity to help.  You should those people contact right at the site of the event.  Our recommendation is that the number of those with whom you get in touch directly should not exceed ten.  It will be very difficult to develop a topic on site with more than ten people.

In the lukewarm category, enter those whom you should contact for various things that you found to share with them and when you think there might be chances for you to help each other.  You should contact them after the event.