Do you hate networking? Did you know all networking is about meeting people. That’s all. Now if this scares you, you may not be making enough sales.
“All good businesses are personal, the best businesses are very personal.” According to Mark Cuban.
Are you are making the money you deserve?
• Is your business doing as well as it should be?
• Do you struggle with using relationships to grow your business?
• Do you have trouble with marketing and “selling” yourself?
Do any of these questions resonate with you? Have you come up with the answers that could help you?
In fact, most people don’t have a plan at all, when it come to networking. They take a random, scattershot approach to networking. Or run around and pass along their business cards to everyone. When this happens – you don’t give people an opportunity to get to know you. Getting to know people – about who they are, where do they live, what do they do, what’s their favorite sports team, favorite movies or places to go for dinner.
In fact, relationships are becoming more and more important. As our economy has become less stable in recent years and the job market more fluid, it has become even more important to have a broad personal network. People that you know. Not just people you know of.
Why are relationships important?
If you are looking for a new job, or to increase your sales in your business you want to know who you can reach out to.
1. Identify who you want to know better and why
2. Join some groups on LinkedIn or MeetUp
3. Find places where you can get out face to face with people and talk to them
4. What can you do right now?
Networking isn’t really just about getting something out of it for yourself, it’s also about how can you help someone else. You’ll need an attitude of serving others first.
Offer something first to another person, then ask for what you need. Say for example you know of someone who is looking for speakers, you could offer your new connection – a person or source who is looking for speakers. You could then say, you have an event you would like to invite them to – maybe you are speaking at. Ask them if they would be interested in attending? Then tell them you will be sending them the information about your talk.
The second part of developing the correct mindset is to evaluate your goals. How you go about helping others will vary, depending on what your goals are. As you evaluate your short and long-term goals, take into account the following considerations:
• Are you happy with who you currently serve? You may like some clients or customers, and dislike others. Or you may hate all the clients and customers you currently serve.
These questions will help you to create a networking plan. Once you do this a few times, you’ll begin to Love Networking, not Hating it.
