Remember your first networking event? The moment that someone asks you, “What do you do?”
Suddenly, you can’t quite find the right words. You fumble through an explanation that doesn’t quite land the way that you hoped. You either say too much, or not enough, or something that doesn’t feel quite like you.
As a business owner, it can take time to develop both your voice and your business’s voice. It develops over time, through conversations, experiences, and often a bit of trial and error.
A business networking group isn’t just a way to meet people; it’s also a place where you can learn what others want to hear, practice your pitches, and hone your business voice.
Confidence Comes From Doing (Not Perfecting)
Being able to talk clearly and confidently about your business isn’t usually something that comes naturally to most business owners. It’s not something you can build by sitting behind a screen rewriting your bio for the tenth time.
It comes from practising saying it out loud. Repeatedly.
The more you talk about your business, the easier it becomes. Whether that’s your elevator pitch, presenting to groups, or general conversation.
Business networking is a fantastic way to practice and build your confidence. Your group gives you space to continuously work on both your personal and business voice, free from judgment. Here you can practice explaining what you do and join in casual business conversations without pressure. As you practice and your confidence grows, your elevator pitch, presentations, and conversations transform from feeling formal, clunky, or rehearsed to sounding more natural.
Once you stop trying to get it perfect, you start to sound more like yourself – the confident businessperson that you are.
It Builds Public Speaking Confidence (Without the Stage Fright)
Few people feel comfortable at the front of the room, giving a presentation to a large group. It doesn’t matter if it’s presenting to a group of colleagues, selling to potential clients, or speaking at an industry event; it’s a challenge for most people. It’s a big leap going from working at home, running your own business, to public speaking.
Business networking breaks that big leap into smaller, more manageable steps. When you join a networking group, you’re not expected to present straight away. It gets easier once you know everyone.
It starts with sharing a short introduction and getting to know everyone. Once you find yourself contributing to group discussions and asking questions of other presenters, the pressure comes off. And then suddenly you’re ready to do a presentation.
TIP: If you’re not feeling up to a formal PowerPoint presentation, you can try a Q&A presentation, where you let people ask you questions and answer them instead of organising a whole presentation for the group.
When you build your confidence gradually, the stage fright slowly but surely melts away. It goes from presenting to a group of serious business owners to talking to a group of your friends.
Each time you speak, it gets easier. Your nerves will settle down, and your message will become clearer and easier to explain. Before you know it, what felt scary will become something you can easily handle.
It Reduces the Fear of Getting It Wrong
One of the main reasons people feel uncomfortable with public speaking is fear of saying the wrong thing. It is often one of the biggest barriers to finding your voice.
The more you speak up in your networking groups, whether presenting or just in conversations, the more you step out of your comfort zone.
Your networking group should be a low-stakes environment where you can experiment. One where you can try different ways of introducing yourself, explaining your business, and talking about your products and services.
Somewhere where you feel comfortable enough to ask for, and other people feel comfortable enough to give you, feedback, and you can adjust what you’re saying or how you’re saying it based on their feedback and reactions.
You can find your business voice without pressure and keep adjusting with feedback until you’re happy with where you’re at. It doesn’t have to be perfect every time (we are human after all), but when the stakes are low, you feel comfortable experimenting and growing.
And if you get it REALLY wrong, at least you can have a laugh about it.
Networking Helps You Find Your Unique Voice (and Your USP)
Your unique selling point is how you talk about your product or service, which shows how it differs from your competitors.
Figuring out your USP isn’t always straightforward, though. It requires a lot of thought, isn’t always obvious when you’re deeply working within your own business, and sometimes you can lose sight of it over the years.
But when you start talking about your business regularly with others, you’ll find that people pick up on different details. They’ll ask you questions you don’t expect and repeat different things back to you, some of which will be good, and some not so good
You’ll start to notice patterns. Different words people use when describing you and your competitors, stereotypes competitors may have created in the past, questions they’ve left unanswered, and problems they’ve left unfixed.
You begin to understand what actually makes you different. A difference that doesn’t come from your perspective, but from the perspective of your clients and customers. That’s where your true USP lies.
Networking doesn’t just help you define your difference. It helps you hear it.
Networking Helps You Refine Your Marketing Message
Knowing how to market and advertise your business isn’t usually the first thing you think about when you jump into starting a business or your career. And then once you want to start thinking about it, the common thing is to just start posting and advertising on Social Media. While this can work, it is often not the most effective way of doing it.
If you want to have more effective marketing, you need to work on your marketing message. Your marketing message can’t be built in isolation; it’s built in community. Because when you’re busy working in your business, you normally talk about it as if others also work in your business. And when you talk to people who might not understand your industry, product, or service, they won’t necessarily understand your marketing messaging.
But when you talk about your business in different rooms, with different business professionals, you’ll get a lot of great feedback that can help you to refine your marketing message. They’ll be able to guide you to what makes sense immediately, what needs simplifying, and what sparks interest. You might find this guidance comes from them asking questions or just through conversations. But you can also ask for feedback on your marketing message. And with their guidance, you can start adjusting your language and marketing to be more relatable to your audience.
Over time, your messaging becomes easier for others to understand and, most importantly, easier for them to share.
It Connects Your Voice to Your Customers
Another valuable part of belonging to a business networking group is that your voice and messaging are grounded in real people. So, you’re not basing what you’re saying on assumptions, stereotypes, or answers from AI.
Through conversations in your group, you can hear what others are saying. How they describe their challenges, the things they genuinely care about, and the language that they naturally use. Given that these people could be your potential clients, knowing this can give you a competitive edge over competitors.
What you learn from other members can help you move away from jargon to something more authentic. And you can reiterate your messaging as many times as you like, running it past them, until you’re happy with it.
And in places where business is driven by relationships, having a voice that sounds like a real person is important. Because people connect with what feels relatable, and they trust what feels real.
Don’t worry if it doesn’t come to you straight away. Finding your voice in business doesn’t happen overnight. It’s something that evolves as you evolve. It changes as your business grows, as your confidence builds, and as you have more business-based conversations.
Networking doesn’t give you a script, but something better. It gives you a space to explore, refine, and find a voice that feels natural and genuinely yours.
This World Voice Day, Remember
Your voice doesn’t need to be the loudest in the room. It just needs to be yours.
And sometimes, the best way to find it is to simply start talking.
Ready to Find Your Voice?
At The Networkers NZ, we believe networking should feel human, not rehearsed.
It’s not about having the expert elevator pitch or perfectly polished presentation. It’s about having real conversations, being in supportive rooms, and having the space to figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Whether you’re a sole operator still finding your footing, a business owner refining your message, or an employee representing your brand, there’s value in showing up, speaking up, and growing your confidence over time.
If you’re ready to build confidence, connect with others, and develop a voice that truly reflects your business…
Come along to a The Networkers NZ meeting and experience it for yourself.
No pressure. No scripts. Just better conversations.
