Get Better Results From Your Networking

When you are out there networking and meeting new people and making connections, you are laying the foundation for growing your business. Meeting people is a wonderful thing. It provides you with opportunities to learn from others, while at the same time others will learn from you. The connections you make through your networking is imperative for the growth of your business.

You meet people who you will learn from and perhaps even use the services or products they have to offer. Chances are, you don’t like to be “sold to.” You’d rather engage in conversations. You’d like to be educated so you’ll make the right decision that best fits you. Only rarely would you jump on board and buy what that person has to offer at your first meeting.

The reality is, it takes time to build the trust required for you either to buy or to refer. Each encounter you have with a person will make an impression with them.

On the flip-side, you meet people who you can serve and help with what you have to offer. You’re anxious because you just know that you could help them. Besides, closing that deal does mean money in your pocket. When building relationships, resist the urge to go after the sale. Concentrate on conversations, learning, and educating. Remember, you don’t like the feeling of being cornered with a sales pitch, so why would you do it to others. The important thing to remember is that what you have to offer isn’t for everyone. Also, the timing has to be right for people to buy from you. A person you connect with the most may never buy what you have to offer, yet they could be your biggest cheerleader and fan, freely spreading the word about you every chance they get. People need to feel comfortable with you in order to even want to do business with you or to refer you. This is especially true in the service industry.

Building long-lasting connections to gain a strong referral and customer base takes more than the occasional meeting. To make a true connection with people, you must make an effort beyond your face-to-face networking. Building and maintaining relationships takes a lot of care and consistent effort.  As you make more connections, you need to create good systems to stay in touch and provide value to those who follow you.

Providing ways for others to get to know you better, freely giving information that others will value, and little acts of kindness will show you care and helps you get to know and connect with your contacts. Building trust means that you need to allow room to have people get to know you. You do this by providing insight on who you are, what you believe in, and then what you offer. Your uniqueness and your connection with your customers is what keeps them around to continue to do business with you. Your connection with them makes them feel comfortable with referring you to others.

As you get to know more people, it increasingly becomes harder to keep up with all the communication it takes to form that true connection. It takes implementing systems and providing consistency.

Quickly, you can become overwhelmed in making sure all the little tasks are complete to build and maintain your relationships. You realize that all the little tasks add up to big results, yet you fall behind in doing them. Why? Because you have the belief that individually, these little tasks don’t take that long so you should do them yourself. The problem is that these little things seem to get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list. Then, they mount up so high that the little task becomes a big job. Or, too much time passes and the moment is gone for timely communication.

I hear all the time that people refuse help because they say “it only takes me a second.” Yet they don’t seem to get it done at the consistency and quality they desire.

These little items are the very things that you should be delegating first. Partnering up with a VA who gets to know you and your business will allow you to get your message out consistently. Even if the little items that you decide to delegate take only a couple of hours a week, you are able to use that time better on other things. The person who you delegate to will focus on those little things for you. They will have blinders on for just those tasks. This frees, not only your time, but also your mind to think about other things.

Once you have your system in place, all of a sudden you’ll realize that you are accomplishing so much more!