Are you networking or notworking?

A few weeks ago I ran a poll on LinkedIn asking “Networking....seen by some as a jaunt out of the office & not proper work and by others as an essential part of their business development strategy. Where do you stand?” Now LinkedIn polls aren’t scientific research and I fully accept that my contact base are likely to be networkers because of my work running networking events. That said the results were overwhelming:

• 91% of respondents had seen results from networking.
• 6% had never seen results from networking
• 3% hadn’t tracked results from networking

Even better than those results was the conversation that developed in the comments. Ken Johnston from Forth offered some great advice for those wanting to get the best results from the time investment in networking:

• I like to look at the list of attendees ahead of the event, and giving consideration to the current and upcoming projects that we are working on, I target those people for interactions. These may be companies that we can collaborate with to deliver a highly successful output, or companies that may be interested in what we are delivering as a solution to a problem they may be facing. (As a personal note from me if you register for a BECBC event you can see in advance who’s attending & send them messages via our system to set up a conversation)
• Once I have compiled that list, I look at attendees that I have never previously interacted with but may find are a useful contact in the future.
• I also add in those that have contacted me prior to the event that would like to have a chat, and in the same vein I reach out prior to the event to ask for someone's ear.
• Adding structure into your networking is fruitful and means you benefit from the limited time. A prime example of this was meeting up with a director of a company based at Birchwood, who I met at an event down in Warrington. We both came away from the event and had half an hour for a presentation at their offices which was only 5 minutes away from The Engine Rooms. 138 miles between our respective offices would not have been an economical meeting and Teams is not as good as a tete-a-tete.

Rebecca Watson reflected I often hear from micro businesses-that tension of how you incorporate networking when you’re the only one in the business. Thankfully Rebecca has seen results but this is a common issue for smaller businesses. My advice would be the find the networking group that really delivers for you then use Ken’s tips to make the most of that time investment.

In larger businesses I often hear that showing a return on investment on what is, let’s be honest, a long-term investment can be difficult. By networking you’re building relationships which can take time but which can also build you a team of people who understand your business, like you and are willing to recommend you when they hear someone needs your services. We hear this a lot in our BECBC membership with members being able to connect people & organisations because of the conversations they’ve had in meetings.

If you’re a networking novice or have struggled to do networking effectively why not join us at one of our BECBC events? We’d love to see you and promise you a warm welcome.