Networking expertise to help you grow your business
Imagine the scene. It’s 10am, you’re in your office, onto your second cuppa of the day, Facebook pages have been checked and updated, and you’re dealing with the unanswered emails in your inbox. The phone rings, and the person on the other end launches into their sales pitch: “I don’t know who deals with your stationery supplies, but I wanted to tell you about our fantastic offers…”
![images[8]](http://business-networking.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/images8.jpg)
Having a well-stocked blog of relevant articles is a great networking tool. However, so many networkers spend hours and hours writing their blog for little or no reward. In this blog post, Heather Townsend, author of ‘The Go-To Expert’, and ‘The FT Guide To Business Networking’ shows how you can replicate one of her client’s success at doubling his business, by tactically adding a blog into his networking tool kit.
How successful was this blog?
The client was struggling in Q1 of this year. His pipeline was pretty light and he had only just refreshed his website and got his blog up and running. Within 3 months it was a completely different story, as he started to get phone call after phone call, from potential clients and introducers wanting to work with them. The only thing that had changed for my client was how he tactically used his blog to keep in touch with his network of introducers and potential clients. In case you are thinking that you don’t have enough time to blog, this client only publishes a blog post monthly.
As a result of his consistent lead generation, he and I were able to ‘codify’ 6 rules of how he should use his blog with his network in order to keep the leads coming. For the rest of this article I will share with you the six rules. [click to continue…]
People who spend a lot of time networking for sales leads often overlook an important part of their network; their clients.
Your clients should be right at the heart of our networking activity, because an introduction from a happy client to one of their contacts will go a long way to helping us win more business.
In my humble opinion, the only thing you can get wrong when networking is the initial approach. My personal golden rule is to ensure that the person you are speaking to doesn’t feel like you are trying to “sell” to him or her. Make it non-threatening and they will stay in the conversation (for a little while, at least). The reason I say that is because if the initial conversation goes wrong, then there isn’t a chance to get it back at that stage or ever (sure, at a later date perhaps, but not at that moment). As the saying goes, “…you might not get a second chance to make a first impression!”
Networking should be thought of as “stages”…
1. Why am I networking in the first place?
2. Where should I network?
3. When should I network?
4. Locate the people I want to network with
5. Start a conversation that simply breaks the ice
6. Create interest in a way that they would like to speak to me again (even better, if they are actually looking forward to speaking to me again)
…and none of this must ever come across as “desperate” or “salesy”!
