What is Networking and How It Can Help You In Business?

I have been networking my entire time as a corporate professional and as an entrepreneur. Networking properly has been one of the most critical pieces to my successes, but it has also been critical to learning from my mistakes. In other words, if you continue doing the same thing and continue having the same experiences with the same people, then you begin to plateau and develop linear thinking. By continually having new experiences and meeting new people, you stay competitive with where the markets are headed, what they are doing, what people care about.

It is an important skill to have. I am good at it too. Networking is not about collecting business cards. It is not talking about the weather. It’s not sales. It’s not about looking for a job. Sometimes networking is not even about people, sometimes it means networking to increase your experiences, not relationships with people. The experiences allow you to develop intuition about people, markets, trends, and different industries.

It is not about attending networking happy hours where people from various irrelevant industries are just looking to vampire your time; you’re better off attending relevant industry networking events where you can learn within your vertical and network with those people.

Networking is about relevance. Networking is about relationships, the right relationships. Networking is about different markets.

I am deeply networked in places like Minneapolis, San Diego, Europe  and Los Angeles. I have many face-to-face relationships with people in all of those markets and more. I am focused on building credibility and relationships in different markets; domestic and global markets.

So how do you build a network in different markets and what it has done for me?

How?

1. Travel and attend industry conferences
2. Appear as an industry expert and facilitator by using LinkedIn to create LinkedIn groups
3. Focus on community/industry partnerships and program development e.g. Technology syndicates/consortiums, technology accelerators, put together your own industry networking events/industry conferences and invite speakers to talk on specific topics
4. Create a personal brand that people can engage in e.g. video marketing, podcasts, writing articles
5. Write LinkedIn references for people
6. Take public speaking classes like Toastmasters so that when you speak to people you appear to have some sort of command presence coupled with articulation and acumen
7. Not all of the relationships that you foster in networking will stand the test of time, but one thing is for sure you will learn and benefit from all of them, even the ones that do not last.

What it has done for me and what it can do for you?

1. Networking has helped me learn about different industries and markets. Different markets have different sorts of volatility and different markets have different core industries  and certain amounts of productivity (GDP) and purchasing power.
2. It has helped me understand different cultures and how different markets operate. If you have relationships in multiple markets and diversify yourself that way, then you can better have a pulse on the ups and downs of different markets and use those relationships to protect against falling bear markets and leverage up on bull markets
3. Networking has allowed me to do business in multiple countries such as South Africa, Israel, and Europe.It has allowed me to produce a $100,000,000 opportunity from companies in Asia who displayed verbal interest to purchase certain U.S. technologies.
4. Networking has helped me help others by referring them into jobs and clients etc.
5. Most of all networking has kept me relevant, knowledgeable and on pace with different markets. By having experience in different markets and industries, I am able to see how the global workplace and market is totally interconnected and how everything interacts on a macro or micro scale.

In closing, the world is a big, intimidating place but if you network, it can be much smaller and less intimidating. Remember markets always crash, they don’t all crash at the same time or in the same way (they are affected differently and respond differently), so when yours does crash be sure you understand the importance of GDP/GNP and proactively set yourself up for a protective posture to do business in other markets or industries. If you network properly you should never have to rely on the excuse of being the victim to market crashes, inflation, rising taxes, job loss or anything like that. If you’re running a business you need to get out and network strategically. You should not be doing things like cold calling, email marketing or anything of that; you hire people for that. GET OUT AND NETWORK! -  Paul

Reach me for personal inquiries and advisory services here: www.BAMbusinesses.com