Established business owners and new entrepreneurs often have a difference of opinion about networking. The old-timers usually say that networking is one of their most important sources of business, while the newcomers frequently claim to put a lot of effort into networking without seeing much return. What's going on here?

Let's define the kind of networking that builds business. It's not just circulating through a room exchanging business cards. A broader view of networking is creating a pool of contacts from which you can draw clients, referrals, resources, ideas, and information. Your business network can and should contain colleagues, competitors, a wide range of business people, and personal friends, as well as clients and prospects.

Meeting people at organized events is one of the easiest ways to build an extensive network. The first secret to effective networking is choosing the right kind of events to attend. Don't spend all your time networking within your profession. Be sure that some of the events you go to are also attended by potential clients, and by other professionals who may be able to refer business to you.

Here are some popular choices for networking events:

• Chamber of Commerce mixers, workshops, and award ceremonies
• Service clubs such as Rotary and Kiwanis
• Trade and professional association meetings where clients or potential referral partners gather
• Lectures, workshops, conferences, and fundraisers hosted by educational institutions, community organizations, and affinity groups
• Social, cultural, and sporting events that include receptions or other mix-and-mingle time
• Private gatherings organized for the purpose of meeting new people and schmoozing
• Lead exchange groups

The way to get the most value from a group is to be a member of it. You will have more success in your networking if you go back to the same groups over and over than if you keep going to new groups all the time. Find two or three that seem to have the right mix of people, and keep going back.

Here's the second secret to effective networking: if you don't follow up with the people you meet, you are wasting your time in meeting them. It is simply untrue that someone will "call when they have a need" for you. The truth is that if they have met you only once, they probably don't even remember you, and it's even less likely that they will remember where they put your card.

Follow up with the people you meet immediately. For those that are potential clients, call to reintroduce yourself. Describe what you do or ask to make a presentation. If directly soliciting business is inappropriate in your profession -- psychotherapy, for example -- you can still make contact, perhaps with a "nice-to-meet-you" note. When you meet people who can lead you to prospective clients or refer business in the future, call them to suggest coffee or lunch, or offer to stop by the office. In either case, after making contact, put them in your calendar to follow up with again in a month or two.

If all this sounds like hard work, you're right. Building relationships takes time and effort. But these relationships are the core of networking. The people in your network should be people you truly enjoy interacting with, because if you're doing it right, you'll be spending a lot of time with them.

And that's the final secret of effective networking -- the one that separates the successful entrepreneur from the new business owner who may not make it. Networking takes time to pay off. You need to put in the effort now, and trust that you will see results later. The business owners who followed that rule when THEY were new are now the established successes who can tell newcomers that networking really works.

Copyright © 2000, C.J. Hayden

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