January 16, 2023
While we start discussing on this topic, I remember the two famous quotes of Mr. Robert Toru Kiyosaki – an American businessman and author. He says –
“Your Network is your Net Worth.”
&
“The Richest People in the world look for and Build Network, Everyone else looks for Work.”
Basically, Business Networking is the process of establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with other business people and potential clients and/or customers. The primary purpose of business networking is to tell others about your business and hopefully turn them into customers or get valuable references from them.
Networking will make you more successful. I have never met anyone in the business world who has built a large network and regretted doing so.
Building a successful business takes a lot of time and dedication, so it is sensible to have a network of business partners and associates to draw energy from and keep you motivated. By surrounding yourself with people who share a similar passion and determination, you are more likely to move forward and achieve results. Business networking is a really valuable way to expand your knowledge, learn from the success of others, get new clients and tell others about your business.
A strong and active business network has advantages that can make your business grow and flourish in many ways.
Let’s discuss those top 7 reasons why owners should aim to grow business networking.
1. Business Leads
Networking is a great way to acquire new business leads. Using the contacts you make when you meet people can open doors for business opportunities. People want to help others but aren’t interested in someone harassing them for business constantly. Being sensitive to timing and using common courtesy while following up with contacts will always give fruitful results.
A good networking environment is defined by the number of connections you can make and their ability to extend your influence and help you generate leads. To generate leads you need to know your audience from a marketing perspective. Communicate professionally when you follow up with your contacts for leads.
2. New Opportunities
Business networking will always result in opportunities. Whenever I catch up with my entrepreneur friends, the majority of the time we discuss business and upcoming opportunities in the market to set up new businesses as well as grow the current ones.
There are always plenty of opportunities that come from networking and in fact, this is where the advantages of business networking are huge, very huge. The opportunities that you get involved in should align with the vision you have for your business. If this is not the case, you might find that you are chasing opportunity after opportunity and getting nowhere.
3. A Piece of Advice
In addition to the potential of increasing your business and finding new opportunities, you can often find solutions to your own business problems or needs by networking. Networking is a great way to tap into advice and expertise that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get hold of. Just make sure you are getting solid advice from the right person – someone that actually knows about what you need to know and is not just giving you their opinion on something that they have no or very little experience in.
4. Become Visible to your Target Audience
Being visible and getting noticed is a massive advantage of networking. By regularly attending business and social events, your audience will begin to recognize you. This will assist you to build your image as a knowledgeable, reliable and supportive person by offering useful information or tips to people who need it.
You are also more likely to get more leads and referrals as you will be the one that pops into their head when they need what you offer.
5. Expands your Circle
Your business will only grow to the size of your current circle. You have access to a certain audience and unless you actively and purposefully grow that audience you will never get your message in front of new prospects. The larger your circle the more opportunities you’ll have to grow your business.
Business Networking helps you to grow your circle by the people you choose to surround yourself with. Networking is about building real relationships, ones that will develop over a number of years.l.
6. Access to Knowledge and Experience –
Knowledge doesn’t come, but you have to go to it.
Two of the most important component that every business owner must posses is the knowledge and experience in his particular field. Without these two, in spite of having all the other resources, it won’t be possible to succeed in business.
Here, Networking is ideal for expanding your knowledge by taking advantage of the viewpoints and prior experience of others to take any business decisions or implement new strategies. Seeking advantage of the experiences and knowledge of others in your circle before you invest your time and money in something can prove to be extremely useful.
7. Positive Influence
The people that you hang around with and talk to will always influence who you are and what you do, so it is important to be surrounding yourself with positive, uplifting people that help you to grow and thrive as a business owner. Networking is great for this, as business owners that are using networking are usually people that are really going for it, positive and uplifting.
Energies are Contagious.. Surround yourself with people that reflect who you want to be and how you want to feel.
To Conclude…
After elaborating the above reasons to grow business networking, I can definitely say that Networking should be an important part of your strategy for extending your influence and generating new business.
The more people you know and the more people who know, like and trust you, the more business you will have. Setting up with an online profile over social media and impassively touching base with connections persistently probably won’t help always.
My tip – Always make an effort to remember the new person’s name and exchange business cards so you can follow up by connecting on LinkedIn or following them on other social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Because… You never know who might cross your path in the future..
Remember…
“Sometimes it’s not WHAT you know, but WHO you know that matters.”
Thank you!
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