Remember the business conference or sales offsite you attended to sharpen your skills - perhaps you were a speaker. Even if you were an attendee, you can benefit from being connected to a great event through curation.
Curation is when you pull together pieces and parts of the event you attended and create one single place people can go online to see more about it. The same idea works in networking - instead of being a spoke, you become the hub. I'll give a few examples below, and ways that this grows business.
1. Visibility: You grow your potential to meet more people who can refer your company or you by gaining visibility. Curation gains you visibility - I am the curator of a list of Top 50 Sales and Marketing Influencers for 2012, which I also happen to be listed on as well. This was done on Pinterest, a tool that many scoff at for B2B use. I'm laughing all the way to the bank, because I link to each person's website - good for them, and if they share it, it also shows who the curator is (me).
2. Knowledgeable Resource: I attended the Smarter Commerce Global Summit with IBM and curated a page on Postwire that has links to blogs, video, and articles about the event. Postwire takes Pinterest curation and incorporates other cool elements, like adding video and documents.
3. Become Abundant and Sharable: Many of my colleagues are beginning to know me as a convener and curator - I want to see those around me shine, gain visibility, and succeed. It is at the core of who I am and what my business is about. It seems that we are nearly always working on content that includes and showcases others. How can you translate this for your business? Curate about your products, your services, your industry, or your company. Interesting stuff gets shared. Think big picture, and choose to be the hub of the wheel rather than just another spoke on the wheel.
Lori Richardson speaks, writes, and trains on sales strategies for B2B mid-market technology front-line sales teams. Why not sign up for our twice-monthly newsletter, “Sales Ideas In A Minute” or the award-winning blog rss feed?