Networking has long been accepted as a powerful business tool and an excellent form of organic marketing. If done correctly, it can offer excellent returns, far greater than any required investment. Purely based on the law of averages, increasing your number of professional interactions will increase your chances of meeting individuals who you can benefit from commercially.

The key to productive and successful networking is “give and take”. It is vital that you learn to share information and accept that your initial thought should be to give before receiving. Don’t start out by requesting a favour, start by offering support and referrals, creating a strong relationship and earning a future favour in return. Show how you can help your network, so that your network will want to help you.

There are many networking benefits and we have outlined a few below:

Referrals –  This is the most obvious benefit and the reason why many business owners participate in networking events. A referral is a high quality lead and gives you access to a customer via a trusted source, increasing the chances of them using your services.

Opportunities – Opportunities from networking can come in various forms, including; joint ventures, client leads, partnerships, and business or asset sales, amongst many others. Look into each and every opportunity and analyse in isolation. Do not jump on board with every opportunity that comes your way as the opportunities you decide to take should align with your business goals and warrant the required investment.

Connections – You will have no doubt heard it a million times – ‘it is not what you know, it’s who you know’ and that is why the power of networking is so important for business people and professionals. If you want to build a successful business, you will need to have a great source of relevant connections in your network that you can call on when you need them. Networking provides you with local connections and really opens the door to talk to highly influential people that wouldn’t otherwise be easy to talk to.

Advice – having like-minded business owners to talk to will become extremely helpful. Networking will allow you to tap into an area of expertise that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to find/get hold of. These people are sharing your journey, at various stages and are perfectly positioned to offer opinions and support you.

Raising your profile – Getting noticed and raising your business profile is a massive benefit of networking. Attending regular business networking events will get your face known. You can then help to build your reputation as a knowledgeable, reliable and supportive person by offering useful information or tips to people who need it. By simply being present and at the forefront of people’s minds will increase the chances of people remembering you when they, or people they know, do need your business services.

Do you struggle with networking confidence? Here is a great article on how to network successfully – click here! 

If you are interested in getting involved in any of our upcoming networking events, please contact a member of the team for more information.