Staying on track in 2015: Make these your goals

I know that it is the second part of January already and that the year is well underway. But I think that it is still early on enough that we should set some goals to keep an eye on throughout and for year to come. So why don’t you take these into consideration for this year?:

• Make sure to have elevator speeches prepared for the service segments you want to promote.
• Be at the networking events, especially the Annual General Meeting. Your network partners depend on you and your company will grow from it.
• Make sure to plan prior to going to networking events.
• Make sure to follow up after networking events so that new contacts don’t go cold
• Make sure to do everything that you say you will do at a networking event. Don’t come off as flaky.
• Keep good records of who you meet, how you met and how you might help one another.
• Share your networking intelligence with your team.
• Involve your entire company in the networking process and activities.

I recommend that you take down that list and put it somewhere where you can see it in your office on a regular basis. Let it be a reminder of the path you will take this year. Incorporate these points into your goals. Let networking be one of the biggest tools in your arsenal to make your company strong and profitable. If you do follow these, I promise you that you will be very glad that you did.

Gary Dale Cearley is the Managing Director of Advanced International Networks Ltd. (AIN), one of the fastest growing and most dynamic business-to-business networking organizations in the world. AIN’s networks include AerOceaNetwork (AON), XLProjects Network (XLP), and AiO Logistics Network. Gary Dale has been in many facets of international freight forwarding for more than two decades from operations to sales to the owner of the first 100% foreign owned freight forwarding company licensed in Vietnam. The companies that he has been involved with have been both generalists and specialists. He has also worked from large European and Asian multinationals (Danzas and Hankyu Express) as well has small start up forwarders. For the past ten years Gary Dale has owned and operated AIN. He has lived in several major cities in four different countries and he is multilingual. Currently Gary Dale runs the AIN operation from Bangkok, Thailand, but travels the world over.