5 ways to make networking useful in your business

By Kathy-Ann Fletcher

It has been my observation that networking is viewed with a level of foreboding. You hear about a networking session and you say to yourself that is merely as waste of time and effort.

I used to think so as well. However, I recently attended a weekly meeting of an organization meant to foster co-operation and collaboration among members and was able to see how networking can be beneficial to individuals and businesses.

Here I present some ideas on how to make networking work for your company. Feel free to comment and add any more ideas you may have.

Be strategic - To maximize the efforts of networking, as with anything else in business, you have to strategic in your activities. Know what you want to achieve and it will clarify the method you choose to form connections with the players in your market. Determine your goals ahead of time for networking. If you randomly go to every networking event without knowing what you want from the process, then you will achieve equally random results.

Be selective – select the events or organisations to attend that match the goals you set. You may be looking to be among the influencers of the market and may search for those who look to be ahead of the curve, investigate who they are, where they gather, what organizations and join or visit or form a link within that organization or group.

Avoid the hard sell – Most people go to these events not to come out with a new product or service to consume but more long-term connections. Therefore, when you are networking view it as a relationship that you are building that can yield mutually beneficial results over the long-term rather than an instant sale to be made.

Devote time – As with anything else you will need to set aside time and resources to networking. That will be mostly spent nurturing the relationships that you are building with those in your network. Networking sessions can be varied therefore, you can do things that naturally build relationships whether it be sports or charities that give the group a central purpose and everyone something to do at the events beside twiddle their thumbs and hope someone speaks to them.

Mix online and offline networking – Form connections with your network on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and offline. This way you can share resources and access their bookmarks and other links and have a basis of discussion in person that can lead to your professional ideas and ideas.