Congratulations, you’ve joined a networking group! Now you’re off to connect with others, get support, and grow your business. Networking is a reciprocal undertaking; what you put into it is what you get out of it. So what can you do to make the most of your networking opportunity?
Here are 8 ways you can make the most of your networking group so you can grow your business.
1. Attend Weekly
You’ve signed up to the group and are therefore making a commitment to attend. But we’ve seen that when people have a busy week, one of the first things to go is the networking meeting. Makes sense, when you’ve got money making things to do, why would you spend the time on something that doesn’t make you money?
The thing is, your attendance at the group might not be making you money in the moment, but through referrals and recommendations, it’ll make you money in the long run.
The benefits of your networking group can’t necessarily be measured in terms of money. By taking time to work ON your business instead of IN your business, you’ll be able to see the forrest for the trees. You’ll also be able to get support with your challenges, and support others with theirs. Plus by engaging in conversation with other businesspeople you’ll learn from their experiences and share yours too.
So, book your meeting into your diary and make it something you can’t book client meetings over. Attend regularly (within reason), be positive, be supportive to others circumstances, and stay engaged in conversations.
Some networking organisations will kick you out if you don’t attend enough during your membership, so dedication can go a long way.
2. Business Networking = Marketing
Networking can be added into every single part of your marketing funnel.
In the Top of Funnel (TOFU), which is all about awareness, networking can help you get your name out there. It can do this by introducing you to not just the people in the group, but all of the people they know too. And when you take the time to build relationships with the members in the group, the more likely they are to make other people aware of you too.
In the Middle of the Funnel (MOFU), which is all about consideration, networking can help you to educate others, which makes them more likely to consider using your business and recommending you to others. By building relationships with the people in the group and educating them about who you are, what you do, and why you do it, they are far more likely to recommend you to others. Not because they have to, but because they want to support you.
In the Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU), which is all about decision making, networking can help you to nurture people within the group across the line and help them to do the same for people they know. You’ll be able to follow up with the people you know, educate them more on your products and services, and even get them to trial your products and services so they can refer you to others.
Networking can even be part of the After Purchase part of the funnel, which is all about loyalty and building ongoing relationship with customers and clients that have already purchased. It can help you to build synergies with businesses in the same industry, like a builder and a plumber. You could even become someones preferred supplier. You’ll be able to follow up with people in the group, and get further referrals from people that have used your products and services.
3. Share with the group
Part of the structure of our networking groups has a section where we encourage our members to share successes, challenges, opportunities, referrals, and events with the rest of the group. We believe that it’s super important to share with the group, especially if you work alone or in a small office.
Running an event? Seen a community event that might interest people? Share it with the group.
Not everyone looks for events to attend, and if they do, sometimes they don’t see all of the ones on offer. So when you share events you’re running or ones you’ve been to, you might get in front of some new eyes. And even if they can’t come, they might know other people who would be interested.
Celebrating your successes is honestly such an important part of your business journey. It’s easy to get bogged down doing the same thing day in and day out, and when we’re stuck in that loop it can be hard to notice and celebrate your successes. And when you have those days, weeks, or months where nothing seems to be going your way it’s even more important. By not acknowledging your wins, it just keeps adding to the spiral.
So share your successes with the group; new clients, overcoming a challenge, learning a new skill, anything! We know that people often want to undermine and diminish their own successes so they don’t come across as too egotistical, but your group want’s to see you succeed – you’re allowed to be proud of your successes.
“A problem shared is a problem halved.”
This may come as a surprise, but the people in the group want to see you succeed, and they’re willing to help you do so. You have access to a lot of expertise, experiences, and knowledge, so make the most of it! They might have the expertise to help, know someone that could solve your problem, or just look at the problem with fresh eyes and give you ideas you might not have thought of yourself.
Having a team to celebrate your successes, get behind events you are running or supporting, and support you when facing your challenges can really help.
4. Actively Build Relationships
You only have an hour each week to build relationships with the people in the group. It’s not a lot of time to build in-depth and genuine relationships, although if you stick around for a while you will. So we highly recommend making the time to have one on ones with the other members in the group. Many people only have these meetings when they want to work together, but it doesn’t need to be only for that. You can use this time to better understand each others businesses, explore how you can help each others clients, learn from one another, or just to catch up.
This is a great time to build your “power circle”, a group of businesses in similar industries that can refer business between them. When your clients trust you and you recommend someone else for them to work with, they’re more likely to use that person based on your word. It’s what networking is all about!
A great example of this the we’ve seen is a classic – between a Real Estate Agent, Commercial Lawyer, Mortgage Advisor, Insurance Advisor. But they’ve gone the extra mile and also included trades in there – a Handyman, Builder, Plumber, Electrician, Interior Designer etc. The more you think about it, the more people you can have in your power circle!
Make your one on ones super easy to have. You’re already at your networking for an hour each week, why not organise to have your one on ones straight after? This means you can just book out an extra hour or so and not have to find a different time that works in your busy schedules.
5. Have an Accountability Buddy
When you work alone, or in a small team, it can be hard to keep yourself accountable. If you manage a team, you might have to keep them accountable, but how often do they keep you accountable? If you share what your goals are with the group and what actions you’re taking towards achieving them, they are likely to keep you accountable. But you can also find one or two other people to work together to keep each other accountable.
Maybe you’d like to get together every week, fortnight, or month to sit down for a power hour and work alongside each other. Maybe you want to catch up occasionally and share the progress you’ve made on your goals with each other. Maybe you just want to message each other to make sure you’ve done the things you said you would.
Whatever an accountability buddy looks like to you, the people in your group are a great way to find them.
6. Refer Members
Networking is a reciprocal undertaking. The more you give, the more you get.
We all know this inherently. It’s where we get the sayings “what goes around comes around” and “you reap what you sow”. But new research shows that reciprocity, both direct and indirect, makes people more willing to help each other. This kind of cooperation is what our societies have been built upon for eons. This means that more we like someone, because they’ve helped us (direct reciprocity) or we’ve heard good things about them (indirect reciprocity), the more likely we are to want to help them when they ask.
But how is this related to networking and giving referrals? It’s pretty self explanatory that the more you help others, the more they’ll help you. But when you help them by referring them, you’re showing that you trust them and that you’re thinking about them and their businesses. They learn that you’re there to work together to grow your business and support others in the group to grow theirs. This raises their perception and opinion of you, which means they’re more likely to want to support you and recommend you to others.
So keep an eye out for opportunities for other members in your group. The more you refer others, the more they’ll refer you!
7. Grow your group
A good networking group isn’t necessarily a big networking group. It’s one that has members that are invested in supporting each other, who refer business to each other, and who get on well together. A good networking group is altruistic and works together for everyones benefit. That could be, and is in some cases is, a group of 8 people who collaborate closely and always recommend each other .
While we do agree that with networking groups, the quality of members is more important than the quantity of members. The bigger the networking group, the more opportunity for business growth. Imagine a close-knit, referral machine of a networking group that had 16 people instead of 8. Imagine if it was 20 or 30! The amount of work passed around would be huge!
The amount of expertise and knowledge in a large group is incredible. And you get access to be able to draw on all their industry expertise, their business successes, and their opinions! You never know what kind of help you can get from a group of people like that. Maybe you’re struggling with your marketing, strategy, admin, or with some difficult clients. The more people in the room, the more advice and ideas you can get around your challenge, the easier it is to overcome.
The more people in our group the more opportunity for everyone to grow!
8. Take responsibility
At the end of the day, you’re at a networking group for your business. So, it’s your responsibility to make the most off the opportunity you have. While the members in the group want to see you succeed, their business and referrals are not an automatic right just because you join the group. Take your time to build relationships with every single person in the group and don’t be afraid to ask for the support that you want and need. Ways that you can do this include:
Presenting regularly. Take the opportunity to do your 10-15 minute presentation about your business. Educate the people in the room on exactly what you do, how you can help them, and how you can help the people they know. Enlighten them about al the various things you do for your clients, from the big picture stuff down to the small stuff. That way the other members can really understand what you do, how you can help, and what to look out for for referrals.
Sharing your expertise. When you present you’ll share your expertise, but you can also do it during our table networking time and in your 1:1s with other members. You can share your expertise by sharing new things that you’ve learned, by sharing a case study, talk about how you helped a client. When you talk about specific ways you can help people, you’ll be the first person people think of when they meet someone in circumstances similar to those.
Ask for referrals: Have you ever tried just asking for referrals? It’s kind of what a networking group is about. To do this it’s important that you know what your ideal client looks like, how people would identify them as your ideal client, and have a good explanation on exactly how you can help them. When you do this, it makes it easier for the people in the group to identify the perfect referral for you and gives them a way to start the referral process when they do find someone for you.
The effort that you put in, is what you will get back. The more and better the relationships you build with in the group, the more you will get out of it.
