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Building Your Network
It is our 15th Anniversary!
To celebrate we are offering a special 2 for 1 registration fee for our May 4-5 Consultative Approach Public Workshop! Sign up now to take advantage of this special offer.
QUOTE
“Networking is the same as teamwork. And a team is defined as 'A collection of diverse people who respect each other, and are committed to each others successes'.”
Harvey Mackay author of How to Build A Network of Power Relationships
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 With customer expectations increasing, products and solutions becoming more complex, and customer retention becoming more crucial, the need for a strong network both internally and externally is essential. Networking is an art and to be effective it must be planned and approached with a “can do” attitude. Remember, quality networking only happens when we build supportive, personal relationships.
Below are a few ideas to help you focus on building your business network:
- Create and use cross-functional relationships (across teams; across departments) to accomplish work objectives, as well as connect team members to the organization and encourage them to communicate beyond their own team.
- Create supporters: Identify the people, both internal to your area and external, whose support you need to develop or implement both short term and long term solutions. (Look beyond the titles of employees to identify key contacts within departments that are or may be relevant to your work.)
- Keep up old relationships: Keep track of those with whom you have worked before and those you have not. Make a list of individuals that you need to build a better relationship with and try to enlist their support in a follow up project.
- Join a professional association. Attend meetings and become actively involved. Professional associations can be a great place for networking, getting fresh ideas, connecting with others who are doing similar work and acquiring new leads for business development and jobs.
- Join a committee or workgroup. Prepare a presentation for the group.
- Attend presentations given by your colleagues. Attend seminars or meetings that clients and colleagues participate in as learners and presenters. Support others who are presenting their ideas and learn from them. Create peer coaching groups to help each other both within and outside your company.
- Ask for referrals. Ask your clients who they know that might be interested in your services. Once a client knows your work and trusts you they are more than willing to refer you to others. The key is to be specific on with whom you want a referral to and ask them to make an introduction by phone or email. This could be a specific person or a specific title such as VP of IT or CIO. And of course, follow-up is key! 90% of business is built through referrals and networking. This same method applies to internal as well as external clients.
Building your network is another key step to developing business relationships. We’ve put together a calendar full of additional ideas on how to build momentum in this area. We hope this calendar gives you inspiration and concrete examples of how to increase your professional network. VIEW CALENDAR (PDF)
If you would like to read our full article on Building Relationships to Gain Momentum with New and Existing Clients please contact us at advanceinfo@advanceconsulting.com.
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