The Marketing Leaders - Networking for marketing profitably

It’s not what you know; it’s who you know! How many times have we heard these immortal words, how true they are, but do we always heed these pearls of wisdom?

Networking in business is not a new phenomenon, business people have been doing it for years, and it’s also part of our daily lives; mixing with like-minded people and exchanging information, ideas, recommendations, and business. Let’s face it; we all prefer to do business with people we like, and businesses we know and trust, or with larger companies whose brand is familiar to us.

At the same time, networking has typically been labour intensive and characteristically, an antisocial activity, as it generally takes place outside business hours and eats into your valuable leisure time. Nevertheless, today networking is becoming a critical way in which to generate more new business. The past few years have seen an unprecedented growth in networking events, clubs, groups and online networking forums all crying out for your time and attention.

Bristol Business School says: "70% of business for entrepreneurs comes from direct personal contact - referrals and networking."

Whilst a Sandler Sales Institute Study found that:

So, networking not only helps you to engage with people you perhaps wouldn’t have otherwise met, but also considerably increases your chances of closing a sale!

Yet, how do you choose where to network?

As with any marketing activity, choosing where to exert your time and efforts can be a challenge in itself. Which networks should you belong to, what networking events to attend, and how much time should you dedicate to this activity? You also need to consider how you are going to measure your results to identify the return on the effort you, your team, or your company spend in networking marketing activity.

As with any marketing activity, selecting the right networking forums can make all the difference in effort versus results. You can do a certain amount of pre-qualifying by understanding who attends various groups, but you may just have to go to along to one event to get a feel for who turns up. A lot of the time, you can usually speak with somebody or find information on the group’s website.

However, if you want to meet more local business people, go along to your nearest Chamber of Commerce meeting. Yet, for more specific networking, you may want to join an association. For example, anybody interested in reaching key people in technology and telecommunications’ companies should consider www.intellectuk.org that runs a plethora of groups and meetings providing plenty of opportunities to network with often influential or senior people. Whereas, more non-specific networking at a senior level may see you attending IOD regional events - you at least know that you will be meeting company Directors.

As people have become increasingly familiar and more comfortable with technology, there is now a significant amount of online networking forums. These change the whole dynamic of networking and means that you can walk through a virtual networking door at anytime day or night and meet people at www.ecademy.com, www.linkedin.com, www.xing.com, www.tribe.net and numerous others.

There are also networking clubs that offer a combination of online and offline networking, ecademy is one, but perhaps BNI and BRE are also familiar to you and offer opportunities to meet on a more regular basis.

Andy Lopata, Managing Director of BRE Networking says that, “With more and more people leaving corporate life and setting up business for themselves, networking is going to play an ever-increasing role in British business life. The traditional routes to market, such as advertising and cold-calling, will become less accessible with increasing government regulation and tight budgets, so business people will have to focus on ways to increase the referrals for their business, meaning a rapid expansion of networking events across the UK.”

The advantage of networking online means that you can choose who you meet face-to-face and who you feel that you will be able to network with effectively based on your respective backgrounds. But, remember it’s just as much about giving as taking.

People and Partners an HR solutions provider recognised that they had many highly capable competitors, but in today’s climate prefer to create working allegiances through online networking to bring powerful support to businesses to rival the quality of major consultancies yet at a fraction of the cost!

Deanne Lee of People and Partners, who successfully networks on ecademy, said “We have recruited interims and permanent consultants and individuals in HR and other senior management roles. We even found 19 people in one weekend to assist with a major relocation exercise a client was about to announce!”

Here are just ten networking tips?

If you are heading off to a networking session make sure you are well prepared and have everything you need to hand.

Do you have enough business cards? I know some people don’t take their business cards out and use it as an excuse for making sure you get the other persons card, but I have seen this backfire and they’ve then left empty handed
Pens and a small pad can be useful for writing notes
Brief pitch, but more importantly rehearse some open questions that gets the other person talking believe me they are more likely to remember you and generally end up then showing more of an interest in what you do
If possible carry the odd product sample or an information leaflet can be useful to pass to people
Keep an open and positive outlook will make you more approachable as you will seem relaxed and ready to meet people – smiling helps to!
Don’t make assumptions about people – first impressions can often be wrong!
When you see two people talking never go up and interrupt as they may be getting in to a deep conversation and you will not give a good first impression if you blunder in and interrupt
Don’t forget it’s not what you know, but who you know and I am regularly surprised where new contacts come from and it is not always from the most obvious people
Initially meet people in your locality, especially when networking out of office hours, people don’t like to travel too far to network with others
Listen more, listen actively, and give the other person your full attention they will know if you are not listening properly and this will close any networking doors. You demonstrate active listening by asking the other person questions to check what they have said to you – it is very powerful try it some time and see

What a controversial topic! I wasn’t able to find any conclusive factual evidence one way or the other, but the general consensus of opinion from a networking blog was yes, women are considered to be better networkers.

Networking should not be approached as an out and out selling activity which many men do, but viewed as a way of building new contacts, nurturing longer-term relationships, and as much about helping others as well as generating opportunities for you. Women appear to be considered better networkers than men as they have a natural tendency to nurturing long-term relationships, listening and connecting with others.

Andrew Widgery who was previously Head of Global development for Ecademy said, " In the light the feed back I received on Netwoking courses I delivered to over 2,000 ecademy members I believe that women are naturally better at Networking than men. That's not to say that there aren't men that are as good but Women have a more natural appreciation of the value of the relationship before the business transaction. Men are instinctively more the "hunter" and transaction focused from the start".

Remember much of the time you will find opportunities from networking not from the people you meet, but the contacts they know and have built strong relationships with previously. No doubt, many of you reading this will recognise and readily support the fact that networking in marketing and sales context is a great way to get new business. In fact, if you had more time, you would do a lot more networking – it’s just finding the time!



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