What Is Involved in the Networking Strategy?

Are you using a super savvy net­work­ing strat­e­gy to help your brand cut through the com­pet­i­tive clut­ter and win para­mount suc­cess? If not, now is a per­fect time to get start­ed on a strat­e­gy to help you con­nect with more peo­ple and evolve your grow­ing business. 

How to Implement a Networking Strategy?

Ask how you can help

When most of us think about net­work­ing, we think about mak­ing con­nec­tions that will help us get where we want to go. While this is an ulti­mate end goal, let’s think about revers­ing the order of help­ful­ness. When you meet some­one, think of some­one you know that they’d ben­e­fit from meet­ing and make an intro­duc­tion with­in the first week of your conversation.

This shows your new con­nec­tion that you’re pay­ing atten­tion and that you care about stay­ing in touch. Addi­tion­al­ly, you are expand­ing your net­work, mak­ing your name as a con­nec­tor and earn­ing a rea­son to fol­low up and keep a con­ver­sa­tion going with this new connection. 

Rapport, rapport, rapport

Be fun to talk to! Have good things to say. Keep con­ver­sa­tions meaty but light and fun. Work on your rap­port by strik­ing up the con­ver­sa­tion with any­one you meet through­out the day; and read often to keep your­self stacked with inter­est­ing tips or tales about the world.

Attend events

This is the old­est advice in the book, and for good rea­son. Show up for as many events as pos­si­ble. Come pre­pared with busi­ness cards, a pro­fes­sion­al demeanor and an impres­sive per­son­al­i­ty to make every­one inter­est­ed in get­ting to know you.

Utilize resources

Get cre­ative about with the resources you have imme­di­ate­ly avail­able to you, right now. What ser­vices, insight and infor­ma­tion can you share with new net­work­ing contacts?

Set goals to achieve through networking

With­out clear goals, net­work­ing can get messy. Before you set out on a mis­sion to bring all peo­ple of your indus­try togeth­er, write out objec­tives for net­work­ing. Is it to gen­er­ate clients? Increase prof­its? Expand brand aware­ness? Boost your per­son­al brand? This is will help keep net­work­ing efforts effi­cient and con­tin­u­al­ly in motion.

Be kind

Always be kind. Being pleas­ant in all envi­ron­ments will go a long way with clients who are get­ting to know you or who are begin­ning to see you reg­u­lar­ly at indus­try events. Con­nec­tions will be more like­ly to engage with you and share your con­tact infor­ma­tion with oth­ers if you’re always engag­ing in a pleas­ant con­ver­sa­tion and experience. 

Be generous

From time to time, reach out and ask how you can help oth­ers. If it’s been a while with a con­tact, offer your con­nec­tions and ser­vices. Let them know how much you val­ue the pow­er of net­work­ing by extend­ing this type of gen­eros­i­ty. The net­work­ing con­nec­tion will bet­ter under­stand the val­ue of your relationship. 

Regular communication

One note goes a long way, and it’s a help­ful way to stay top of mind in con­tacts’ busy lives. Send a brief note once every few weeks. Try shar­ing rel­e­vant indus­try news with a note about how it has affect­ed your com­pa­ny, invite your con­tact to a small event or find out if they’ll be attend­ing an indus­try conference. 

Stay simple

Are you spend­ing time and ener­gy on con­tacts who are not direct­ly rel­e­vant to your busi­ness? If so, reeval­u­ate your net­work­ing objec­tives before con­tin­u­ing out­reach. Share your time and resources with the peo­ple who are def­i­nite­ly use­ful down the line and those with whom you can share a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial relationship. 

Rosy Strategies

Net­work­ing holds a pow­er that can pro­pel your com­pa­ny far beyond the poten­tial you’ve imag­ined. If you are curi­ous about how net­work­ing can specif­i­cal­ly help your busi­ness grow, reach out to our team at Rosy Strate­gies. We will review all aspects of your busi­ness and help solid­i­fy the best pos­si­ble net­work­ing mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for your busi­ness devel­op­ment needs and goals.