As much as we are taught to network in the business world, I find that people often make crucial errors when learning how to “work a room.”

Here are six of the most common ones:

1. Blabbermouthing. Talking too much. Going on and on without giving another person a turn. If you’re the one who hogs the talking platform you will soon frustrate others and they tune out the blabbermouth. If you are a blabbermouth who is wringing out the patience of other’s you will be labeled as such. Don’t be fooled. Just because your job requires you to speak for a living that everyone wants to hear your opinion on every subject. Professors, clergy, professional speakers who are all paid for a living pay special attention.

We’ve all been there. You’ve gone to a site that you’re sure has the information you need and when you click on it all you see is…craziness! Blue background with yellow font, type crooked and out of line with other copy, photos that don’t make any sense, and recently, I went to one Legal Nurse Consulting website that also sold decorative soaps. As your small practice’s “webmaster”, if you’re are going to do it yourself then you will need to not only have potential clients flock to your site, but you also need to keep them there so they will hang around and look. Yet I continually run across poorly designed sites where I see the same mistakes repeated over and over again.

Whether you are blogging, writing a newsletter or planning an email marketing campaign, CONTENT is what’s important. It has to be SPECIAL! What makes content special, of course, depends on the intended audience. Some audiences prefer short, one-line answers from experts and some prefer paragraphs filled with detail and insight. Some attorney clients will prefer content rich material that will assist them in the very case they have on their desk right now.