Today is day one of the AIB Start-up Academy, and lecturer Sean Weafer will lead a session on advanced business networking.

Weafer is a performance coach and an international speaker on sales strategy, networking and business development. “I specialise in how you use intelligence in business to create compelling and repeatable client relationships,” he says.

He has worked as an engineer and psychotherapist and says he uses both skills in his business coaching. His career shifted from engineering into the IT industry, and he became the sales director of a software company.

Another software company asked him to lead a half-day training for its staff. He “got such a buzz” from that, he set up his first business training and development company in 1994.

On day one of the AIB Start-up Academy, Weafer will teach skills for becoming a “world-class networker”.

He says that being able to network effectively is “the single most powerful development tool available today”. It gives businesses “instant access to key decision-makers”.

While traditional methods of networking like calls, emails and letters can be effective, “there is nothing more powerful than knowing what you’re doing in the right room with the right people at the right time”.

He says most people don’t know how to network, which involves knowing how to read a room and have an effective conversation. But developing a networking strategy can be learned.

He calls it “personal contact networking: knowing what you’re doing when you walk into a room. Knowing the people you can approach, how to make an introduction, how to have a conversation. How to exit in an elegant and appropriate way.”

“If we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re in danger of ‘dumping’ people. They feel really bad about that, and you’re off talking to someone else. It doesn’t create emotional resonance with people you want” involved with your business.

He says the goal of networking is being able to contact the person afterwards. “You should exit a conversation in a way that people will be happy to talk to you after the event.”

“There is a degree of psychology involved,” he says.

He will explain how to use emotional intelligence, rather than the technical intelligence that often comes more naturally to entrepreneurs.

“Most people think the best networkers are extroverts, but the best networkers are introverts because they’re prepared to listen. Successful selling comes from the capacity to listen, not talk.”

For more information about Sean Weafer, go to seanweafer.com.