by Elizabeth Ducie

Created on: November 22, 2009   Last Updated: November 23, 2009

Let's start by looking at what we mean by networking. It's all about developing contacts or swapping information with other people in an informal manner with the purpose of furthering our business or career. The keywords here are contacts and informal. Let's look at each one in turn:

Contacts

Contacts can come from any number of levels within our lives.

We can talk to our family and our friends. They are going to be the most open to the idea of supporting what we do and may well have contacts of which we are not aware. For example, I found I had a cousin who is a published author and therefore I was able to tap into her contacts in the publishing world.

We can talk to people we come into contact with during our daily lives: the people who serve us in shops, the people we meet in clubs, gyms, church choirs, wherever we spend our spare time. For example, I have met people through my Pilates class who have introduced me to potential customers for my books.

We can meet people in business organisations such as chambers of commerce. For example, through our local business guild, I met another freelance writer and we have set up a community newspaper together.

We can search out complementary businesses which might be interested in mutually beneficial activities. For example, I network with consultants who cover different technical disciplines to mine. If we receive requests for work which are outside the scope of our expertise, we pass them on to someone else in the network.

Finally, we can search out businesses which do the same things as us (and this one may seem strange but it really does work). For example, I network with consultants who cover the same technical disciplines as me. If we receive requests for work which we are unable to do through lack of resources, we pass them on to someone else in the network.

Informal

Informality has a number of implications.

This is not a selling activity although we obviously hope it will lead to sales at some point down the line. Nothing puts people off more than getting a 'hard sell' from someone. We should be prepared to swap information and leave it at that.

It is an activity that can be done at any time, with little or no planning. Every time we meet or talk to anyone, we have the opportunity to network.

While we are not planning when we talk to someone, we can certainly plan what we are going to say. We need to develop and practice the 'elevator speech'; the two or three sentences which would be all we have time to utter

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