photo by Amnemona

There are a lot of great ways to market your business, but a lot of really effective, inexpensive marketing ideas are related to networking.

In the book Endless Referrals by Bob Burg, Networking is defined as follows:

The cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships.

The first couple of steps is to establish a network of relationships that meet the definition above.  Although it’s not easy and it is an ongoing effort that takes time, there are a several good books on how to do that, including Endless Referrals and The Little Black Book of Connections by Jeffrey Gitomer.

But once you have a network in place, how can you fast track those relationships, in a win-win fashion to build your business?

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Networking is a tough thing to do – or at least it’s tough to do well.  If you were to look at the whole thing objectively, the primary reason to network is to benefit yourself or your business.  After all you want to grow your business, that’s the point.

However, the catch-22 is that if you approach networking with a me first attitude, you will fail (and a lot of people won’t like you very much in the process).

In fact, networking as a small business owner has several things about it that make it very difficult:

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I’m currently taking the shotgun approach to networking.  I haven’t yet found that really productive niche or two, so instead I’m going to pretty much any event that I can within a 20 mile radius.  It’s pretty tiring, but I think it will pay off in the long run (and I’m meeting a lot of great people…!).

Here’s a partial list of my networking activities just in the last week or so:

• Principal Connections :  This is one of my favorite networking events that I’ve found to date.  It’s once a month at a nice restaurant (Bonefish) and has some restrictions on attendance to keep the group focused.  You should check it out.
• American Club Association – team meeting :  The ACA is the latest organization that I’ve joined and I actually think it has the most potential.  I have a team that meets twice a month and I can join several other clubs – I’m starting the entrepreneurs club on Friday. Read More…

I ran across a couple of totally unrelated stories today (via the wonderful world of the Internet and the enjoyable blog of Bill Harris – Dubious Quality) that got me to thinking about the importance of friends.  There are lots of studies that relate the value of being connected from a personal standpoint.  A lot of those same benefits are also true in the business world  where the friends and family equivalent is your  business network.

In some cases, your friends and family are your business network but usually there are people that you wouldn’t necessarily classify as a friend but they are a valuable part of your network – and if you want it to stay that way, you better be a valuable part of their network.

The first story I ran across was this impossibly cute tidbit from the Daily Mail:  Abandoned Monkey finds friend in Pigeon complete with this over the top picture!

It seems that this monkey was abandoned as a baby and was befriended by this pigeon, giving him a ‘new lease on life’.

The second story (no cute picture on this one) is about a really unusual spider web that was found in Texas that was over 200 yards long!  You can read the details of the story here but after extensive research they determined that there was a bunch of spiders working together to form this Meta-Web (my term).  Even though spiders like these normally are competitors, the unusual concentration of food prompted them to work together for the benefit of all.

Granted it’s a bit of a stretch, but here’s what this got me to thinking about in terms of a small business owner.

Are you actively building a network?  Not just a network of prospective clients, but a network of potential partners, support vendors or just people that you know, like and trust that you can use as a sounding board.

Are you having conversations with people you know to see how or if you could be of mutual benefit to each other?  Could you build a Meta-Web – even if you overlap in your business in some way?

Are you finding people that are drifting a bit, maybe they need some help or guidance, and doing what you can for them?  The essence of a network is value that you add (without specifically seeking anything in return).  Have you met anyone that you could help out today that would build up your network?

If you’re not doing these things, you should be!

Building (and keeping) a network can be really hard.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on your day to day problems or to just spend time with your immediate circle, but the value of a strong, diverse network is immeasurable – both professionally and personally.

Here’s a suggestion – make a weekly activity on your calendar to help out at least 1 person in your professional network.  It could be as simple as sending them a link to an article, website or resource that pertains to what they do.  You could make an introduction to a potential prospect or partner (potentially helping 2 people at once…!).  Or you could just setup some time to meet with them and see how things are going.  Give them some support and some time and let them know you’re interested.

Let me know any ways that you build or keep your network.  I’d love to hear from you.

Shawn Kinkade  www.aspirekc.com

I had the opportunity to go to 2 different Chamber events this week and I still haven’t figured out the right approach for making these things:

Work for me.

Be fun.

Not be painful/awkward….

Having said that, I did get some good advice today from one of the Chamber veteran’s that his approach was to use the networking meetings just to meet people and extend his relationships and NOT to do any business.  Now it sounds counterintuitive but I think he’s on the right path.  Until people know, like and trust you they’re not going to do business with you anyway.  And the path to Know, Like and Trust can be a long one (likely several months long).

So my approach going forward is to be friendly, be approachable, try to be somebody’s first friend (as suggested by Scott Ginsberg here: http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/07/be-somebodys-first-friend.html especially once I’m not the new guy).

On top of that, I want to set a goal to identify at least 2 people I could contact after the meeting with the intent to meet them 1 on 1 at some later date.  I think that’s going to be the best way to move from Know to Like and hopefully on to Trust.

So what about you?  Any strategies for succeeding at Chamber meetings?  Share them here.