Selling is what happens after someone gets to know you and your business, which I’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks. But, before the selling comes actually connecting with other people.
There’s a reason that networking has a bad rap. I can’t imagine anything less comfortable than meeting in a cold hotel room at 7 a.m. in the morning, sipping ice water, while a few dozen other people just like me are busy repeating their elevator pitch and handing out business cards.
Umm…. no thanks.
Unfortunately, at the same time, your business needs you to be meeting new people. It’s unavoidable. So does that mean you are on a express bus to that 7 a.m. networking meeting?
Although I’ve written about networking before, but today I want to give you two things.
First I want to convince you of how important networking is to your business, and what it means.
Second, I want to point you at a terrific free resource on heart-centered networking that is being offered by a former client of ours.
Why Is Networking So Important?
There is a sustainable way to do business, and it often involves technological strategies such as search engine ranking as well as creating content for people to find. It works. We use this approach a lot.
However, it’s not an easy game to play for a new or struggling business, because it doesn’t necessarily create results immediately. It takes time. It’s the long game. Sustainability is often about the long game.
This is because it’s all about relationships. I define business as “the relationships you have around your livelihood.” That, to me, is what business is. Not what “a business” is, but what business itself is. Caring for the relationships around your livelihood. There are many relationships and many different types of relationships involved.
To a new or struggling business some of the most important are with people who might be your clients. Building a relationship at a distance, through content, through your website, absolutely works. But it’s not as fast as actually being face to face with someone and sharing a heart space with them.
Sharing a heart space is not fool-proof, because not everyone will become your client. But you will find clients more quickly from that heart space. What’s more you’ll find people who can send you clients.
I recently helped a family friend build her practice, from scratch, in about a year, helping her get to making more money than she had ever made before. Another former client, in about a year or so, built up a business that also was financially successful and set her up so that conferences were reaching out to her to have her speak.
Pretty amazing. Almost all of the results were founded on the ability to network, to create relationships with people.
The Line I Hear Sometimes
We do a lot of work here at Heart of Business that is based in the spiritual, and so we sometimes hear from folks who tell us, “I don’t believe in God.”
I almost always say, “The God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either.” Because the God most people don’t believe in is a caricature, a beard in the sky throwing judgment like thunderbolts, randomly or viciously.
So, here’s what I want to say to you: the networking you don’t believe, I don’t believe in either. I don’t want you sipping iced water in a cold hotel room at 7 a.m. (unless that’s your thing.)
You can embrace networking from the heart, you can put this essential skill to work for your business, and you can have fun! It’s true!
Today, this morning, Tami Gulland, another former client, is interviewing me as the kickoff presenter for her Heart-Centered Networking series. If you miss it, you can get the replay over the next 48 hours. Plus you’ll get to hear a bunch of other folks Tami has drawn together to help make networking really work for you and your heart.
Tami is not a hard-sell person. She may have offers that come after this series, and if you’re drawn to take her up on them, I recommend her. She’s got a great heart and a lot of skill.
I’ll say that Tami has graciously offered us an affiliate link for her event, so that if you do click through, then purchase something from her in the future, we do get a thank you. I’ll also tell you that affiliate income makes up less than 5% of our gross revenue, so I’m not doing it for the money.
I’m doing this so that you will learn about networking if you need it.
If you missed the links above, go ahead and find out more, and sign up for Tami’s Heart-Centered Networking here:
Heart-Centered Networking
With love and appreciation,
Mark
4 Responses
Hi Mark~As always, I am grateful for your insights. I’d like to add that there’s some nuance to this networking thing, as I’m discovering day by day: my connection to others is as good as the connection I have to my own heart. While in the past I’ve been just plain too intimidated to “network” in the usual sense of the word, I find that when I’m at ease, sincere and also willing to be generous (which does not mean give too much of myself away, etc) the networking wheels turn with little effort. I’ll give an example of what I mean by generous: there’s a woman I’ve wanted to have as a client, as a raving fan no less! She is well connected & a great promoter of people/services/products that she feels good about. And she’s going through significant pain and loss in her life. To make a long story short, I helped her track down a new living space. She’s grateful and has booked appointments with me in the coming month. I did not assist her to “gain” her business. I helped her b/c I recognized that there but for grace, go any of us. I had to be clear in my self of what my motives were and had little investment in what she chose to do. It doesn’t always work this way for sure. But if I deliver good work and the heart space between us continues to grow, I suspect I’ve grown my network in a way that was effortless and heartful.
Meg- that’s a beautiful, inspiring example of what it means to have an authentic intention and to truly be of service. Thank you so much for sharing it!
I can definitely relate to networking face to face. Like you said networking through blogs and other sort of social media is great . It does take time.
But when you are face to face with someone it gives you a sense of humanity with that person that you cannot really get when online. That is just a fact whether people want to argue against this notion or not.
It does not necessarily entail meeting face to face with potential clients. it can also be about networking and meeting face to face with people who are in the same industry with you.
You can thrive in these relationships as you share strategies, experiences, participate in joint ventures with , brain storming and many more variables that are conducive in making you both successful and your businesses flourish.
I’ll stand with you, Robert- there’s nothing that replaces being in the same physical space with another human.