Passions That Pay

Networking has a long history in the offline world. It can be informal – mentioning what you do for a living at a party is networking and considered vital in certain industries such as entertainment. Or you can attend more formalized situations specifically set up to network for business.Most chambers of commerce organize mixers for their members and organizations such as BNI have breakfast meetings for their members to make contacts.
The Internet has been quick to catch on and has obvious benefits – you do not have to leave your house and you can network all over the world.

Networking is all about relationship building. It affords us the opportunity to get known, liked and trusted within out target market. We can build up a referral network and take advantage of word of mouth advertising. We can meet possible join venture partners or other people who can help us build our business. We meet people who we learn to know like and trust in whose services we are interested.

Networking is a long term strategy. Although it is possible to pick up business the very first time we network in a new place, we need to think more about establishing relationships then making a quick sale. So a question to keep uppermost is “What can I do for you?” Educate people about your product or service along the way but always be looking for your opportunity to serve the other person.

Do not immediately dismiss someone you meet if they are not your target market as they may know someone who is your ideal client. That having be said attempt to spend your majority of time networking within your target market.

There are several ways to network online. Some sites such as LinkedIn are based on a profile and linking to people of interest. Many LinkedIn members run or are part of email groups. Ryze also uses profiles but they have busy forums to help connect members.Ning allows you to form your own networking communities. There are also voice networking opportunites such as Verbal Networking and Business and Learning and I am expecting this type of networking to grow exponentially.

Experiment with the different type of online networking to see what fits you best and is most effective for your business. I will be giving you my take on various networking sites starting with LinkedIn in the coming weeks.