How much networking is enough to sustain or grow your business at the rate you desire? This isn’t an easy question to answer because it depends on many things.
If you really wanted to, you could go to networking events all the time, day and night. There are more networking events than there are hours in the day. But is all that networking really that effective? The answer is no. If you have no clear plan, goals or intentions, then any networking will be ineffective. It will also not do you any good if you go to all these events and then don’t follow up in a timely fashion with the people that you meet.
So how do you choose networking events to attend? Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- How good am I at social interaction and relationship building? This actually matters far less than most people think, but it does matter. If you hate going to networking events, for example, it won’t be effective for you.
- Who are my target clients? (This is a huge topic in and of itself and key to any business.)
- What networking events do they go to? Or where do they hang out? It may be that the best networking for you isn’t a networking event at all.
- Who are good referral sources for my target clients? (Many professions receive most of their clients by referral rather than direct contact.)
- What networking events do they go to or where do they hang out?
- How many networking events can I realistically attend per week and still get the actual work and follow-up from the event done. If you don’t know how long on average it takes you to follow up after an event, try 2 hours for every networking event and track it from there. It’s likely to be much higher than 2 hours.
The next question is a big one -
How few networking events can I go to and still maintain or grow my business? The fewer events you can attend and still achieve your goals, the more you can focus on actually earning the money – whether it is you yourself doing client development or a team of salespeople.
So how much networking do you do?
Tags: business, Coaching, Marketing, sales, sales coaching