8 Ways to Quickly Grow Your Network

 Everyone in business needs a network. Networking is one great way to meet more people and expand professional/business connections. It is about building relationships, sharing information and finding sources of support.  When it comes to meeting people, building relationships and networks many young and successful entrepreneurs readily give away some tips on how to get it done successfully. Here now are some 8 of such tips for mastering the art of meeting people beyond the boundaries of your business interests and connections:

1. Start a network

If you must grow a network, first, get involved. It is not enough to think about it, all you need to do is get started. To become influential at anything, you’ve got to dig for information. You may start by reading any and everything you can lay your hands on out there. Next is to commence networking with people in the niche you have chosen. You become ardent at it by writing about it, speaking about it, attending events on it and gradually becoming the voice of the expertise in the niche. The network grows from there.



2. Become active on Social Media

These days, nearly everyone is on social media. These media provide simple platforms for 24/7 social interactions with people around the world. Now, that’s great for networking! With social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, it is easy for you to reach many people beyond the natural niche of your products/services.  With the ease of sharing photos and information on these platforms, building a network can occur real quickly.

3. Volunteer to serve

This is one easy way to get noticed by others. By volunteering some hours of your time to serve an organization working on a cause you really care about, you get to work closely with other people with whom you can form a network. Working with others as volunteers provides you a very valuable opportunity to meet people who care about similar things but most likely work in different industries. Great opportunity to grow a network develops from there.

4. Connect with an experienced networker

Experienced networkers always have traits you can benefit from. It pays therefore to seek them out in a crowd and make their acquaintance. If in a gathering you do join in a conversation with such persons, other people may naturally be drawn into such conversations. One great way to gain valuable knowledge, meet new people and build a network thereafter.

5. Join a business organization

When you join a business organization, you can easily build relationships and networks. With business groups like Rotary International, YMCA and many others which regularly bring together business leaders from diverse markets, you get to meet many vibrant people with a lot of ideas suitable for a network. Meeting with them regularly helps to grow the network pretty quickly.

6. Use alumni networks

Many successful business leaders attest to the fact that old school Alumni chapters are a great way to stay connected and network outside your own company and niche. Because these chapters often include graduates from different majors, they provide the forums to have fun and to learn from people you don't normally interact with. It is one great way to meet new people and to build valuable networks.

7. Consult Venture Capitalists

Venture Capitalists are always business persons who are very familiar with the business environment they operate in. For that reason, consulting them for information about the business environment is a very smart thing to do. Many of them always have a wide portfolio of companies they work with. As such, they can at will connect you with entrepreneurs at different companies and ventures who you might not otherwise meet. Now that’s really great for building a network!

8. Host events

If you want to grow a network quickly, it is smart to occasionally host events rather than attend other events always. By inviting more people outside the niche of your industry to your events, you get the opportunity to meet, talk to and interact with such people. As the host of an event, you and your space are natural focal points for your guests. That attention provides the leverage for you to get to know them very well. A network naturally grows from there.

How to Attract Amazing People to Your Business

 If you are in business and you want to do real good, you need a network. These days, networking is vitally important to your business no matter what the business entails. If you’re looking to improve yourself or change the fortunes of your business for the better, you need to network. Since every network inevitably involves interacting with people, you’ve just got to find ways to get these people. To get people into your network, you need to do the following.

1. Joining a professional networking group. If you’re looking to get into a business or meet people in a specific business, you can arrange to join a professional networking group of the business you are interested in. Online groups found in IBOtoolbox.com, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ can be very useful here.



2. Doing things you love to do together with others. The most exciting way of networking is simply to do the things you love and you’ve always wanted to do. Things like singing in a choir, playing a musical instrument, sky diving, hiking, taking a cruise, flying and so many other things ordinary people have fun and excitement doing. Moving your life and your business forward begins by attracting new and amazing people into your life. So, it is good to get out there, get to meet exciting people and make their acquaintances by doing the things they love to do together with them.

3. Seizing every opportunity to meet other people. You can form the habit of meeting and talking to people at every opportunity.  Even perfect strangers! Because of the unpredictability, meeting and talking to new people daily can make life very exciting. Fact is, every single conversation you have with a new person is potentially life-changing. That helps you to get to know a lot more of very exciting people you can do business with.

4. Changing hobbies to meet new people. Everyone I know has at least one or more hobbies. If you’re looking to build a network, it might be worth changing up your hobbies or taking up some new hobbies. The essence is to get to meet new people in the new hobbies you’ve got involved with. If you look very well, you will find that people involved in certain businesses tend to gravitate towards same hobbies where they get to meet up regularly. I read somewhere that many business analysts play squash, writers go to book clubs, and middle managers for consultancy firms go road cycling. These are only some of the hobbies you can take up depending on who you want to meet.

5. Leveraging on the people you meet. As human beings, each person always knows somebody else who knows somebody else ad infinitum.  Because of that, many successful networkers always like to remind everyone that: “It’s not who you know, it’s who you know knows.” Any person you get to make a new acquaintance of daily probably knows someone else who can help you in your business. That helps in no small measure to expand your network of exciting people you can do business with.