Why do people fail at Networking?

Networking is a crucial part of business and some people get it; they develop and nurture strong relationships and their business benefits.?Not everyone is so lucky though, lots and lots of people try and fail at networking, I’ve seen it happen.

How do I define failing at networking??

The way I see it, people who have failed at networking are the people who haven’t seen any benefit from it, they haven’t achieved the goals they wanted to. They haven’t been able to connect with people, or they have connected but haven’t developed mutually beneficial relationships.

In short, they haven’t created a healthy and robust network for themselves.

So, why do people fail at networking??Here are some common errors I see people make at networking events:

One-sided conversations:?If you only talk about yourself and your own business, if the conversation is very one-sided, you will learn nothing about your new contact. What’s more, they will be left feeling like you don’t care about them or adding value to their business and this is not a fantastic start to a networking relationship.

Take but never give: Don’t just ask for advice or help, but never give it.?If you do that you add no value to your contact, you become nothing more than a nuisance.

Follow-through:?If you say you’ll schedule a meeting, then do it as soon as you can.?Don’t make suggestions, or even worse promises, then fail to deliver.?You will look unreliable and unprofessional.

Acting inappropriately or unprofessionally: If you don’t act respectfully and professionally to other people you can’t earn their trust and respect in return.

Over-selling yourself: Don’t overpromise or over-sell yourself and also don’t focus only on selling yourself.

Give-up straight away: Strong, healthy and robust relationships take a while to develop, you need to put in the effort to build a solid foundation to start from.?If you give-up too easily, or if you aren’t willing to invest the time, you will never see the reward of a good network.

Ignore the people who can’t help you: While it is nice to be surrounded by people who can help you, you shouldn’t focus solely on these people.?If you can help somebody, but they have no way of returning that favour, go ahead and help them.?They might not be in a position to do much for you now, but who knows where they’ll be in a year from now.

Neglect previous bosses and colleagues: Don’t ignore them just because you already know them.?Think of your relationship with them like a house plant, you need to water it regularly to make sure it flowers.?If you ignore the people you already know, you’ll probably end up losing the relationship you have built with them.

So, what should you do??Here are some of the things I like to do when I make a new contact:

? Ask interesting and relevant questions and actually listen to their answer.?It’s not enough to just appear interested, so I make sure I listen and ask any follow-up questions so that they know they have my full attention. Here are some of the questions I have found spark up an interesting conversation: What work do you enjoy doing? What are the next steps for you??What do you hope for the future? What opportunities do you currently have? What are your greatest challenges?

? Introduce them to people already in my network.?Doing this creates a sense of community, it brings all of us closer together and I’ve found people like it when you help them to expand their network.??

? Share my knowledge and resources.?While I’m speaking to people, I like to think of ways in which I can benefit them, add value to their business, or help them to overcome a problem.?I answer any questions that I can and I provide feedback in situations that I am able to.??

? Share business cards.?This sounds obvious but it's surprising how easy it actually is to forget to exchange contact information with someone, especially if you find yourself in an interesting conversation with them.

Networking, like everything else, is a learning curve.?It does come more naturally to some people than it does to others, but anyone can network successfully. It’s about having the right mindset, understanding what you want to achieve, avoiding the aforementioned common mistakes, and providing value.

If you have any networking tips, or tried and tested methods, I’d love to hear them and learn a thing or two.

Drop me a comment.