Building Powerful Networking Habits

It is important to be consistent in your Networking activities. That means forming good habits by being methodical and tenacious. Work to develop your existing skills, and to learn new ones. Make sure you apply what you’ve learned.

• Network everywhere. Wherever there are people, there’s an opportunity for you to contribute, to to be contributed to. The gym, your church, and your kid’s school all count. You might not engage in business networking in these locations, buy you can gain valuable personal information (such as restaurant recommendations!).
• Network with your suppliers and vendors. The people with whom you spend your money. Do they know and understand what you do?
• Use non-vocational interests as opportunities to network. You can gain clients during your everyday activities, perhaps by striking up a conversation at your health club or on the golf course.
• Be consistent in attending networking meetings. Out of sight means out of mind! As Woody Allen put it, “Ninety percent of life is just showing up.”
• Use breakfast and lunch times as opportunities to network. We all have to eat – and eating is a modest form of intimacy which can easily be combined with networking. Breakfast and lunch are great times to exchange some social graces and get to know people.
• Have a scoreboard to track your networking activities and effectiveness. You could measure: Number of events attended, business cards received, number of opportunities, referrals given, referrals received, follow-up activity.
• Network with everyone. When we network with people, we’re not only networking with them, we’re networking with all their relationships. You never know who your neighbor may know! Don’t focus only on super-connectors and centers of influence.

EXERCISE Look at all your current and former clients. How did they become your clients? Did you meet them directly, or were they referred to you? Who introduced you to them? If someone engaged your services, the mechanism by which they became a client might allow you to get more clients in a similar way. If a super-connector introduced you to several past clients, are you maintaining that relationship?