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to help him a few hours a week. That rings a bell with the woman in the deli and she mentions your name. It only takes a few links like that to start bringing in the customers.

Business Networking

One step up from the social networking comes the business networking. In this case, you get together with other business people in semi-formal or formal environments. These might be the local chamber of commerce, business guild or group such as Women in Management. The purpose of such groups is to support local businesses with a variety of services. There is usually a regular meeting, often centred around breakfast or lunch. Members get the opportunity to introduce themselves and say what they do. One model that works well is where members are seated at round tables of 8 -10. There is a period of general talking to get people to relax. Then each person gets a couple of minutes to make their pitch. Talking to just a small number of people is relatively easy and is good practice. Afterwards, there is often an open mike session when one or two people from each table make their pitch to the whole room (which could have 100+ people there). This is more daunting, but once you have been to one of these events a few times, it's worth having a go.

It's important to remember that the purpose of these events is to increase your visibility and NOT to make sales straight away. Networking with people who just want to increase their circle of contacts can be a fun, relaxing activity. Networking with someone in order to get an order before they leave you is hard work and more likely to turn customers away than bring them to your door. The key is to be memorable so that next time someone is asked 'do you know someone who can help me with...' it will be your name that springs to mind.

Referral Organizations

This is the next step in the networking chain. Organizations such as BNI (http://www.bni.com/) exist specifically to share contacts and referrals. Groups are set up so there is no duplication of services offered by members (just one accountant, one builder etc per group). Meetings are held weekly over breakfast and regular attendance is encouraged. The main purpose is to bring in business for the members of the group. It means you will have a group of people out there all the time, looking for opportunities to pass on to you. However, it also means that you need to be on the lookout for opportunities for the other members of the group. So your own networking skills will be brought into

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