When it comes to networking, everybody is a potential new connection for you. You never know who could bring value into your life. It’s mind-boggling to think of all the time you could spend meeting new people and developing these new relationships. And while I believe that everyone does have value, we must strive to be more targeted in our approach to business networking.
Targeted networking
How do you meet new people and make new connections? You may discover them purely by accident and chance (the power of serendipity). Other people may suggest them as good contacts for you, or you might purposefully seek them out through your networking activity. This is what I call “targeted networking.”
Tools to help you:
- My World Exercise™ will help you get started by providing you with a worksheet to list all the people that are top of mind in your current, active network.
- Top 50 Contacts and the 50-5-10-2 Strategy will help you cultivate the most important business networking relationships – the people that will help you get the furthest fastest!
- Expanding Your Sphere of Influence will enable you to fully leverage your active contacts, re-claim your lost contacts and add great new future contacts to your professional network.
When business development is your goal, your networking strategy needs to be finely tuned. You cannot rely on serendipity or take a casual relaxed approach to building your professional network. You need to make strategic moves and build strategic relationships that can take you somewhere significant soon. You must develop an appetite for greater risk and actively push yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s time to be bolder and connect to people of greater influence. You have a business to build.
Need more help?
The reality is that you have a limited amount of time and energy. Since networking is not your full-time job, it’s time to figure out who is most important to you and with whom you will invest more of your time, energy and talent in developing a lasting relationship.
My advice to you….get my book Networking Ahead for Business (Kiwi Publishing).
