It’s all about relationships
Many of us are looking for higher sales, more clients, higher income. A lot of us have tried various online courses, read self help books or studied to become an expert in your chosen field. All of these things are worthy and I’ve done them all and now I feel I’m experienced in being worthy of giving my opinion on what really works.
Networking comes in so many guises but fundamentally it’s about relationships. If you join one of the higher profile and excellent face to face business meeting that are run weekly, fortnightly or monthly, one of the lower profile and localised networking groups, online groups, or just a couple of friends at the local coffee shop, you need to concentrate on one major rule..
… Build the relationship with the people you meet. Take a genuine interest in their work and home life. Ask what sort of client (specifically) would help their business, what they enjoy doing in their spare time, how long have they been an expert in what they do? What you can do to help them!
Nurture that relationship, meet face to face as soon as possible, this will accelerate the process of creating new friendships or working relationships. Follow up with a ‘Thank You’, maybe take a photo of you both and publish on social media. Comment on their posts with something more than ‘Happy Birthday’ once a year!
Why? Once you’ve taken the effort and invested your time in people, the things I spoke about at the top of this blog, will come to you. You’ve heard the saying ‘people buy people’ haven’t you? Have you ever heard the phrase people buy people who want to sell you something?’ NO!
So my advice is to ‘flick the switch’, create friendships through getting to know people, ask how you can help them and their business, take an interest in what they enjoy socially and be sincere.
Good luck and let me know if you have successes. We all like a success story.
PS – I made ten telephone calls, 2 zoom meetings and a coffee with a colleague in the last couple of days. I’ve got at least a weeks work on the back of it!
