Are you a networking novice or ninja?

Reluctant and unconfident – two networking personality types that I meet on a regular basis.

The reluctant networkers typically fall into two camps; they’ve either heard horror stories about boring men in suits, or pushy salespeople shoving business cards at them, or they’ve had a poor personal experience.

The unconfident networkers find walking into a room of strangers intimidating, or they worry about which networking event to attend.

I heard all this feedback through interviews I completed with business owners across the UK, when I asked them about networking for their business.

If you identify as either of these personality types I urge you to take a new look at networking, and that starts with reframing the word. Networking is connecting and building relationships, whether that’s on a one-to-one basis, or in a group environment. There are no rules that say to be an effective networker you must attend a networking meeting every week with at least thirty people in the room all pitching their businesses and vying for your attention. In my opinion, the best relationships are built when you first get to know someone over a coffee, and you find a topic that you can bond over.

1. Identify which business categories are connected to your ideal clients. These are the people and businesses to build strong relationships with over time and, when you’re ready, to refer clients to each other. Yes, refer to each other – it should be a two-way exchange for the relationship to work. Your ideal client in a networking situation might be a potential or prospective client, but it might also be others in the profession who work in different areas to you, or in complimentary areas.
2. Create a shortlist of businesses that you’d like to find out more about and start to build a relationship with, including the name of the people that you’d like to connect with. If you are looking for two personal or business connections, I’d start with a list of six, and scale up from there. You won’t resonate with every person/business you meet. Remember it is about building a relationship for the long term.
3. Start by asking connections in your phone book if they are connected to your shortlist. Getting a warm introduction from a friend, family member or personal connection is an easy way to secure a first meet-up. Ask colleagues and those you have met at other events if they have useful connections as well. A cold outreach is likely to remain unread or deleted in a busy email inbox or LinkedIn page.
4. Identify if and where the connections are networking. Are you able to see from their business or personal profiles the networking events that they are attending on a regular basis? Could you go along to the meeting, introduce yourself, and let the person know that you’ve come along to meet them specifically? Just think how special that would make the person feel.
5. If you can’t find any reference to them currently networking, it is time for you to find networking groups to visit. At these groups, go armed with the connections you are looking to be introduced to. Depending on the style of the meeting, you may get an opportunity to pitch your business for 30-60 seconds and ask if anyone is connected to the name on your list. Don’t forget though that seminars, webinars, social events and conferences are all great places to network as well. Maybe they’re attended by people who work in similar areas of law to you, or completely different ones. Maybe they aren’t legal professionals at all, but people who might need legal services. You can network anywhere; it does not have to be a ‘formal’ networking event.

These five steps work whether you are a regular networker or just getting started. If you’d like to find out what networking personality type you are then take this quiz https://networkingpersonality.scoreapp.com.

You’ll then get tips and ideas on how to harness the power of networking for your business.

Finding and connecting with a business is one step in building your networking muscle. Planning your approach and setting some clear objectives from the meeting is key. You won’t be passing business from just one meeting, but sharing information and securing a follow-up meeting that you’re both happy to progress with is a great start.

Written by Vicky Labinger