I have spent my whole career in Sales and Marketing – two disciplines that I love. Traditionally Marketing was perceived as being the more “glamorous” option, usually because it is seen as being very creative and sometimes has a very glitzy end product however the reality is very different.
Sometimes, yes, marketing campaigns may have one highly visible element that appears to be a one-off but in fact successful campaigns are built over time, with messages being communicated in lots of different ways on a regular and repetitive basis requiring patience, organisation and continued hard work…
… and networking is exactly the same.
Once you have found an event where you feel comfortable and the format works for you then you need to attend regularly so that people get to know you and your business and develop trust in your capabilities – something that does not happen overnight.
However, whilst turning up regularly is good you can enhance the effectiveness of your attendance still further by the way you present yourself at the meetings.
So, share your knowledge and expertise generously, offer advice and talk to people you know and those you don’t in equal measure. In other words, focus on how you can help other people rather than on what they can do for you… and keep doing so on a regular basis, attending as many meetings as you can.
Yes, this approach does take time and commitment but networking regularly like this brings high quality results; not only in terms of generating serious enquires for your service but you will also develop a network of contacts across all sorts of specialities who will be happy to reciprocate with their own knowledge and expertise.
So, I have a suggestion for you, if you have a networking event that you attend and you like because it feels comfortable and is a good fit for your business, put the next six dates in your diary now and commit to attending and see for yourself what a difference going along regularly really does make…
… hopefully that might be Coffee and Connect but other networking groups are available!