Benefits Of Business Networking

Business networking is a cost effective way to market your business.

Paul Yates

June 02, 2008


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Are you starting a new business? Or maybe you already have a well established small business? Whichever is the case you will no doubt have made a business plan, forecast your cash flow and probably frightened yourself as to where all your money has gone.

In order to generate new business it’s essential to market your services and certainly this can be a very costly exercise. Advertising can be seriously expensive. For most businesses unless you have a specific promotion or special offer which the target audience needs to respond directly to, your advert probably won’t even be noticed, let alone acted upon. If you think you will get a flood of responses from a single general advert think on – advertising is about recognition and repetition. So unless you have a recognised brand and have the money to invest in repeated adverts you will probably struggle to see any return on investment.

So, what about business networking as a cost effective option for promoting your business? Business networking is not about a closed shop where everyone gives each other work, it’s much more powerful than that. It’s fundamentally about the act referring business to people that you have grown to know, like and trust, and for them to do the same for you, It makes use of the fact that everyone has a wide network of personal contacts and when you know, like and trust someone enough you will want to recommend this person to those we know.

You will do it naturally anyway but there are ways to enhance this process. Understanding how to give a quality referral is an art itself and something that I cannot cover today so for the time being let’s just consider the benefits of business networking.

It is estimated that 70% of new business that your company gets is through word of mouth. Networking allows you to explain what your business is about and as fellow networking people get to know you so you will naturally start to win new sales leads because people like to pass business to people that they know.

Simply the act of attending business networking events will raise your profile especially if you network on a regular basis. Remember my earlier point about advertising – recognition and repetition, attending regular business networking events achieves this.

Not only do you have the opportunity to present your business (your message tailored to your audience each time), you also get to meet with a lot of business people from other walks of life that will inevitably be able to help solve some of your problems. And you will be able to do the same – it’s all part of the relationship building process and at the end of the day it’s this relationship that counts when recommending someone’s services.

Have you ever picked up the yellow pages and looked for a particular service? How do you choose? It really is hit and miss. By getting to know reliable contacts who can provide you with what you want and who can be trusted is worth so much in terms of your time and money.

Likewise, if there’s no one in your network who can help, the chances are that someone knows someone who can and will recommend them. Suddenly you find that your business is moving forward at a much more rapid pace. Your confidence will soar!

Sharing experiences is also part of the game. Just talking to people about their experiences, their goals and their problems will stimulate lots of new ideas and open your mind to new opportunities. All of a sudden you have a completely new approach to doing something or even a new business venture that you may never have otherwise thought of.

Last but not least it’s amazing how much satisfaction we all get from helping others…and this is what true networking is about. Those who seek to help others first are the ones who benefit most.

There are many business networking techniques to learn in order to make the most of this style of marketing but once you’ve understood the basics, give it a little time and I’m sure that you’ll soon understand the true power and benefits of networking.