The Necessity of Networking
Written by: Don Miller
Posted on March 6, 2008
Filed Under Starting your Online Business
The title says it all. Networking is a necessary component of any business, home based or traditional, yet I still encounter business owners resistant to making an effort to do so. It occurred to me that perhaps I could remind everyone of a few basic fundamentals to restart your networking strategies. Your voice, your words left to their own devices will only go so far. If you could tell 1000 people a day about your business that’s great. There is a ceiling to what you can effectively promote in a given day, but what if those 1000 told a thousand more and so on. When you get others to talk about how remarkable your product or service is, your story becomes viral. The news spreads through multiple sources and your business essentially gets launched
The More you Network, The More you Network
Sound Silly? Let me explain, everything we do consistently, we do better the next time. If you are a golfer, you will hit better golf shots by hitting better golf shots. Networking strategies begin and end with your willingness to practice the habit of doing so. Allocate time each day to network. My personal mantra is, if I am awake, I am networking. Practice it, practice it some more and you will get better at it. Many people like the anonymous nature of working on the internet, but as a business owner you can ill afford to adopt that philosophy. A person encountered and not enlightened about your business is an opportunity missed.
Be Able to Describe your Business at Every Opportunity
I have written on my site about the best question you can ask your customer. It is this, “how are you doing today?” My friends nothing opens the door to a conversation quite like that question. Everyone wants an ear to listen and everyone has a story to tell. I ask that question of just about everyone I encounter each day. Why? Because the majority of people either answer the question directly or ask me how I am doing. My standard reply is “I’m always doing good!”. The inevitable reply almost always follows.. Why is that? There is my opportunity to share about my business. I can do this is a few sentences and that usually serves as gateway to deeper discussion. I help people establish a Home Based Business with knowledge they already possess. Often I help them discover their dormant talents and passions. Everyone is passionate about something, agreed?
Contact People in Your Niche
This one is somehow difficult for people to wrap their hands around for some reason. When I started my Home Based Business I set out to make establish relationships with people in my business. The purpose is multi-faceted. Again the more you put your name on the minds of others the better it is for your business. This is not a process that just happens. It will take some effort. I have been invited to guest post and I have invited others to guest post. I met Monika Mundell through her blog and it seems we frequent the same sites, as my comments often follow hers and vice versa. Two things about her intrigued me from the outset. I loved her writing style and I loved her passion. I am naturally drawn to people with passion for their work. I made contact and she posted an article about niche sites on my site. We both win, but the bottom line is nothing happens without initiating contact.
Stretching Your Social Skills
Years ago I opened a retail sports memorabilia store. I had absolutely no experience in retail. Looking back it probably wasn’t one of my better decisions, but it was successful. I was fearless in those days. I was also a socially challenged neophyte in communication with strangers. I knew that if I was going to make it I had to talk and talk plenty. It was either talk or go out of business. I started talking which was way outside my comfort zone. Today I cannot shut up. You can do it too. Now I have a challenge for you. Contact five people today that you never have that work in your niche. This may seem outside your comfort zone and that is okay. You are trying to stretch yourself. Take a look at the advertisement at the top of my page from the Small Business Marketing Conference. I met Robert Clough online two weeks ago, through an introductory e-mail. We will work together in the future. It works people. Put yourself in a situation where you are surrounded by strangers, maybe the mall, maybe just a dinner party. Tell your business story over and over to strangers. You will be surprised at your results.
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Tags:, blogs, home based buisness, niche marketing . networking
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12 Responses to “The Necessity of Networking”
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The Necessity of Networking…
Remember when your blog traffic was growing quickly? Now you have hit the wall. I bet you can trace it back to slowing down on your networking. It happens to all of us, we get bust , we start making money and we back off our networking. here is a remin…
Hi Don,
This is very true in my experience. It helped me to get over my resistance to networking when I decided it was making friends. My friends would be smart enough to realise that I needed to make money from my business - so I don’t feel that I have to be doing sales when I’m networking, just making sure that I connect well with people.
Evan , That a good way to look at it, I had lunch with my 25 year old son today. He is in sales. he told me “Dad selling advertisements is easy for me , its just about establishing relationships”. I wonder where he learned that!
Networking definitely helps. Besides, it is one of the best parts of working from home, because it will help you miss less the social interaction from the times when you had an ordinary job.
Networking is always an interesting topic fraught with difficulties to do well.
Why? Because most people start playing with networking with the wrong mindset, expecting instant wins and focusing on themselves and their own interests. I call this “me, me, me marketing”
But we know that most people much prefer talking about themselves so instead of boring people talking about your business and trying to pitch it to the uninterested, ask insightful questions about theirs. They will love it and you will create a great impression. You may even be able to make some telling comments about how you helped a firm with a similar problem.
I also like the Guerrilla Networking approach of aiming to become the type of person other people want to meet.
If you are not networking, you are not working.
I had a retail business at one time too. It was a lot of work and I learned a lot from the experience. Today, I hope I’m benefiting from the lessons. You are right about what you said,
Cheers,
LaRene
Hi Don,
You’re right. Networking is the main thing everyone needs to do, whether a business owner, online or off, or an employee.
If you don’t network you don’t find new opportunities period.
Great article,
Sherri
Hi Don, these are excellent points - I really like the one about networking being a social outlet if you’re working from home. That’s a good way of looking at it and could help motivate one to do more of it.
Sorry Don, I nearly missed this party. Great post Don and thank you ever so much for your compliment. It sure as hell is like balm on my soul right now.
But I like to return the favor and say that if it wasn’t for people like you, there would be no fun in networking at all. I’m afraid I’m also not the networker that is found at every party, but more so the raw, honest, upfront and very open hearted kind.
I find that this quality (at least for me it is) increases the actual quality of the true friendships I seem to have made while being online.
Working from home is a lonely task at times and for people like me who aren’t into the “celebrity” following this can be also sad at times.
Thanks to online friends like you my life is full of sunshine.
Networking and forming communities is the best way to go. I think this is one of the most under utilised or least mentioned facets of life online even off line for that matter.
If you’re part of my community of course I’m going to talk you up when you have something to say on your blog. Its what you see sort of by default in the links recaps you see on other blogs. That sort of is a community of that blogger.
Im currently working on building relationships, in order to share traffic ideas, products, reports, feeds and stuff like that.
Good post topic.
@ Monika, thanks for the kind words
@ Make Money Bloggin, building relationships is where we all need to be in all facets of life, thanks for stopping by