These here are five tested strategies available to small business owners who want to turn meeting people and conversations into lasting relationships and business growth.
1. Understand How Networking Works
To profit from a network, you must fully understand how networking works. Sometimes, networking, promotion, and sales are often treated as interchangeable. But, they’re different. All three constitute three distinct stages of marketing, each with a different purpose. Understanding this difference is what really separates good business owners who close deals from those who do not.
As experts like to explain, the purpose of networking is 'to create acceptance’. The purpose of promotion is to create an ardent desire for one's products/services. And, the purpose of sales is to collect the money in exchange for a product/service. What this really means is that you do not try to sell before you have earned someone's trust. A prospect that is not yet comfortable with you may not be ready to take what you are offering, let alone pay for it. If you get this sequence right, the sale stops being an uphill push. It becomes the natural next step.
2. Handle Networking Follow-ups as Hugely Important
In networking, meeting someone is only the opening move. The real opportunity is always after the introductions. This is when most relationships either fade or start to gain traction. An overwhelming majority of sales always take place after repeated follow-ups. Just like networking itself, effective follow-up is something you can improve with persistence, organization, and an intentional approach to staying in touch without overwhelming your contacts.
3. Prioritize Precision Targeting Instead of Volume
Technically, a larger network does not always translate into better results. The strategic allocation of your time carries far greater weight than the size of your network. It is not the number of people you talk to that really matters. What matters is the right people you talk to that are likely to have interest in what you are selling. So, rather than attending every networking event you can find, you can identify your ideal customer first. Then seek out the organizations, events, and online communities where those people already gather. It is not about casting the widest net possible, but casting the net exactly where the fish are.
4. Apply the Same Principles in Every Network
Even with the advent of many hugely popular social media platforms, there really is no new playbook about networking. No matter the platform, the basic natural laws for people's interactions are the same and do not change. The media platforms remain means to achieve an end while people still interact by face-to-face meeting, phone communication, internet use or virtual meeting. So, irrespective of whether you are at a 500-persons event/seminar, sitting in a hotel lobby or repeatedly posting a message on your social media handles, the cardinal rules of human interaction apply equally. The media and tools may evolve, but the fundamentals of human connection remain the same.
5. Always Apply the Two Cardinal Rules of Networking
Experts have technically reduced effective networking down to two guiding principles:
1. Genuine interest in others and
2. Always putting your own agenda last.
Small Business owners who set their personal agenda aside and pay attention to the person in front of them easily outperform those frantically chasing the next pitch. If you form the habit of asking thoughtful questions, listening actively, and genuine at all times, you can become an effective networker. Granted this is much easier said than done, but practice makes progress even if not perfection.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment. Thank you.