Attending networking events is practically a pastime for professionals these days. After all, you don’t want to feel you’ve missed out on making connections with potential leads. But let’s face it; traditional networking events leave you with a whole lot of paperwork—mostly business cards and other marketing materials—that will clutter up your desk until you finally either file it away or throw it out! If you’re dreading your next networking event because you’re afraid of how long it will take you to sort through all business cards, it’s time to make automate your networking. What does this mean and how can you get started? Take a look at a few reasons to start automating your networking efforts.

Networking Is Still Important

First, don’t make the mistake of quitting networking altogether just because you don’t want to deal with all the business cards after every event. Networking is still critical if you want more leads. One study found that 78 percent of entrepreneurs claim networking is one of the keys to their success with their startups.

If you want new leads for your business—and you do—you have to keep making new connections, and networking allows that. So don’t give up completely just to avoid the hassle of paperwork. Instead, focus on keeping your efforts mostly online, through a program that can automate your networking and ensure you don’t have to deal with tons of business cards after you meet new people.

Your Time Is Valuable

When you run a business, you’re perpetually short on time. That means you just don’t have the space in your schedule to file away marketing materials in your hotel room or at the airport after attending a networking event. You don’t even have time to copy and paste information into dozens of emails in an effort to reach out to everyone you just met.

Stop filling your schedule to the brim to make room for these time-consuming tasks. You’re better off letting an automated program keep your networking process organized and paper-free. Once you remove these tasks from your schedule after an event, you’ll have time to actually relax and read a book…or simply get more work done at the end of the day!

A Better Way to Monitor Your Networking Success

You want to know your networking efforts are working for you. That means no more guessing that giving out 50 business cards at an event will result in at least one sale down the road. You deserve to know the results to expect because you’ve been tracking them using technology.

When you automate your networking process, you can easily keep track of who you connected with once the event is over. You can also monitor which contacts have led to more sales, meaning your networking paid off—literally! This is much harder to track through just writing down who you exchanged business cards with, which is why automating your networking process is worth it.

As you can see, if you want to save time and effort while improving your ability to monitor your networking results, automating the process is a good idea. Ready to learn more about boosting your networking success while saving time? Reach out to us for more information on automating the networking process.