A country is not operated by one person, a building is not built with one pair of hands. Now the same applies to make money online. Networking with the right people is essential to building an online business.
When I first started, I thought that I was capable of doing everything on my own. So I didn’t bother outreaching for support.
Over time, I realized my mistakes and decided to try it out. Are you networking with others? Or better yet, are you networking the right way?
Even if you’re not currently networking, that’s okay because, in this article, I will go over a few awesome networking strategies that will help you network with people the right way.
Step #1. Voice Yourself
If you are brand new to your industry, then you’ll have to make extra effort to voice yourself, to let people know that you exist within your niche. And that’s why events exist!
By attending events, you can meet all sorts of people at various stages of their life. Some may be well established and some may be starting off just like yourself.
The good news is, most major events will have guest speakers as well as established attendees. By being at those events, you can introduce yourself and start your networking there.
You don’t have to go out of your way to fly to a different country for events. I’ve attended a few local events using the app Meetup. It’s free to sign up and a great way to meet like-minded people.
Step #2. Qualify And Connect Via Social Media
Social Media has made it easy to connect with each other. I encourage all beginners to sign up with Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. During these events, you can add people you meet because they will probably have an account already.
You can also use LinkedIn to qualify the people you want to work with. Here are questions you should ask:
- What is their specialty?
- How many years of experience?
- Who do they know?
- Do they have a website?
- Any way to communicate?
After you have qualified a list of people, you should try to reach out to them via email or a phone call. If they don’t live too far, you can even create your own meetup groups.
2 months ago, I invited a few internet marketers to have lunch. It’s a great way to connect and talk about how we can improve and grow our own individual business. It’s also a great time to talk about potential collaborations.
Step #3. Get Together
Now that you’ve qualified a few people and have already sent out a few messages. Hopefully, you can get some people to agree on meeting up and getting together.
Personally, I like to invite people to lunch or dinner because who doesn’t like food? For the people who haven’t responded yet, that’s okay. Don’t remove them from your list.
Simply reach out to them the following week. After about 2 to 3 attempts, if they don’t respond, you can remove them off of your list. After all, there’s no reason to connect with someone who doesn’t respond.
Now let’s go over what you should do during these meetups.
Step #4. It’s Time To Show Off!
Yup, it’s time to show off what you can do! Not only does it make you look good, but it also gives other people an idea of what you can offer. It’s almost like a job interview, so I highly recommend that you do your homework.
Research each person who will be attending the meetup. What are they specialized in? What kind of work have you done that would make their jaws drop?
Just view them as potential business partners, but you only have one shot to impress them! So don’t go in there with low quality work that makes them want to run away.
The good news is, you control the time for the meetup, so even if you don’t have anything in your portfolio that might impress them. You can start one right now just before the actual meetup.
In the end, it’s all about providing immense value!
Step #5. Offer Some Ideas And Ask Questions
The purpose of the meeting is to learn about each other and what each individual has to bring to the table. Depending on your niche, you should always prepare yourself by researching different ideas and recommendations.
It may or may not be helpful, but at least it will keep everyone focused on the niche topic. It’s easy to get carried away and waste time to talk about nonsense.
To ensure that everyone knows what to expect, it’s not a bad idea to talk about discussion topics prior to the meetup via email or conference calls.
Simply summarize the topics that you will be discussing and ask if there’s anything that should be added. Once you have a solid idea of what to present, now you can put this together in the form of a powerpoint or even in paper notes.
Lastly, asking questions is a great way to contribute to meetups. Sometimes it’s not always about the answers, it’s about asking the right questions that get people thinking.
Not only will you learn about how other people are operating their businesses. But it will also keep everyone engaged. If nobody has the answer to the question, it can be brought up again for the next meetup, so you’re basically setting it up to reconnect.
In Conclusion
I hope this short article is straightforward and helpful in helping you network the right way going forward. It all starts off with finding the right people to network with and there’s no better place to find the right people than at events related to your niche.
Now there are no reason to waste your time, so qualifying people to connect with is going to save you a lot of time and money in the long run. And it’s even more important to talk about the right things during the meetup.
Now go out there and start networking! If you’re already networking with others, what kind of tips can you offer to everyone else? Please let us know by leaving a comment down below.
Cheers,
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