Get The Sale

Posts Tagged ‘networking’

What is business networking to you? Is it working for you? Do you have any goals when you network? These are questions I’ve been asked in the passed. I’ve always heard, “it’s who you know”, but I think it could be said, “it’s who knows you”. If you you attend a network meeting, what kinds of things do you think should happen? What kind of effort do you apply? If there several attendees and you have only a narrow time window, how can you get the best for you AND for the person on the other end? It goes without saying if you are only concerned about GETTING and not GIVING then networking or partnering might not be for you.

Granted not everyone there may be a great fit for networking with, but there’s a good chance if you can introduce yourself openly, you will identify a few people each meeting, and greatly increase your chances of getting and giving very good results. I found it’s best to greet as many people as possible, then you’ll know (with usually little time to do so) who might be a good first fit then follow up. It seems a little strange to me when sometimes we take the time to get to the meeting, make the effort to meet and greet, exchange cards, go back to the office and never follow up.

Follow up is so crucial in building relationships, after all if we are there to just collect business cards, we probably won’t be very happy with the process and just give up. There needs to be the “full circle” of relationship building, meet, talk, evaluate, and FOLLOW UP.  At that there’s a good chance some relationship building is starting to happen. Without developing relationships from networking,  efforts seems to wasted time to a large degree. There are many ways to follow up, some work some don’t as well. While we are in the relationship building mode, we could always send an email, sometimes works but not real personable, of course a phone is good, but another way that has been effective for me and others I know is sending a post card, after all who expects to get a card, normally no one.  So anytime you’re networking consider why you are doing it and how you can effect other people and how it makes you feel. Written by Tim Frisch – www.getthesale.com.