My absolute favorite thing to do: networking. You'd be surprised at the diversity of partnerships one can encounter and enjoyments in life one can fulfill through the power of networking. Somebody knows somebody, that knows somebody and so forth. I am an advocate for networking. I come across tons of ideas and projects for personal growth, for my foundation (A New Me Foundation, Inc.) as well as other colleagues with the power of networking which has saved us from tons of working late night hours, when we don't have to. Fear will tell you that you don't have the money to start your own business, write a book or start a mentoring program for adolescents. Let me assure again, that if God gave you the vision, He will make sure you and with the help of others, will carry the vision out. I'm grateful that with my first book, "God, Do I Hear Wedding Bells?", my family and church family invested in the start up costs I needed to publish the book. I assume they took part in my goal to publish a book because, some read the manuscript I had written and liked the content, others wanted to donate to a worthy cause, some knew me from when I was knee high and others just believed in my goal and simply wanted to invest in it. There was no loans taking out, nothing but the financial support of others. I tell this story all of the time because so many people place their dreams on a shelf inside their mind because of what they don't see in the natural or simply put, up front. I did not have to pay one cent towards the publication of my first book. Now, once that book was published I took half the proceeds and reordered that book (I sold out of copies fast) and the other half of the proceeds, I spent towards publishing the second book, "Women's Devotionals and Journal (copyright 2007)".
Many of my book sales, book signings and speaking engagements came from me not being outwardly shy and taken each opportunity I'm given to make a difference in someone else's life, through networking. No one knows what you need if you keep it in your head. When you meet new people give key points or bullets of who you are in 30 seconds. I'm sure you've heard of the elevator speech. In 30 seconds, a person will have time to decide if who you will benefit them in some type of capacity for business purposes. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say maybe try this with dating new people. Give the potential partner 30 seconds to give you a snap shot about them and determine from there, if the date should continue or chile, run away fast and avoid a date #2 with this person. Someone please let me know how this suggestion turned out for you, for the sake of my research.
Never network without business cards, a pen with your company's logo or something. Those items not only make you look professional but whipping out your smartphones or tablets is too much work when a simple business card would do just fine. Your business card and logo should be SIMPLE and the reader should see the content CLEARLY. I know you might want to have every color in the 64 count box of crayons to place on your business cards but that in and of itself spells disaster. You want the connection or contact person to be able to read your contact information, who you are and what it is you do without the distraction of a lot of colors or the font is too small and the person has to squint their eyes to find out what your name is. Remember, you have 30 seconds to sell you or your brand. Don't throw those 30 seconds away due to a busy and very distractive business card. I've seen business cards thrown away immediately after the person who gave the card, turn their back or left on tables after I've left a meeting, training or conference. Ladies, it is not cute nor professional to talk to someone and have to search through that gigantic Coach purse to look for your business cards. There's no telling what all you have to go through to locate it in that purse. My suggestion is to purchase a professional business card holder, wallet or place the business cards in an easy location inside of the purse, to get to, quickly.
Another great networking tool is using social medias. Join similar groups of interest on Facebook or follow like minded people or organizations on Twitter. It takes a second to "share" or "retweet" your ideas, events, projects or cause via social medias. People love to support others and especially for a good cause. Everyone isn't selfish or will turn your ideas down. You will have to sell yourself before your brand is well known or before others will market your brand for you. Remember, take small steps by sowing seeds and continuing to water your seeds (goals/dreams/visions). If you don't believe in you, who will? I'll also add who will invest in you if you're not confident in yourself? Practice in a mirror using eye contact with yourself, if needed take etiquette classes (search for FREE videos on YouTube), if you were like me and had bad posture, practice sitting up straight and some of us needs practice walking upright, heads held high and marching to the beat of our own drums. First appearance is everything! Don't invite someone out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and you don't know the salad fork from the dinner fork.
STOP THE PRESSES! If this is you, "Uumm...., you know what I mean?"
TAKE THOSE WORDS OUT OF YOUR VOCABULARY. If you're an "Ummm" or "You know what I mean" person when you talk, record yourself talking and count how many times you say those words and begin practicing sentences without using them. Find words in a dictionary or thesauras that accurately express what you're trying to say. If I'm listening to you talk and you say, "You know what I mean", chances are, I really don't know or understand what you mean. Investors won't purchase your product or promote it if they don't understand what it is you're trying to accomplish with the product.
Proper dress code: Presentable at all times is a must. Call ahead and get the proper dress code if need be. I wouldn't suggest those new pair of heels that you have been dying to wear and you haven't practice walking in them yet or even worse you bought them a size too small (you knew that at the time of purchase). Now you're distracted with the aching or pains from those expensive Jimmy Choo's or the fashionable Jessica Simpson styles. Your appearance, could make or brake a collaboration or investment. Networking in my opinion, is similar to job interviews. You have to show up and market yourself or your qualities to reassure the partner who's never met you, sees you at your best and why you're the perfect person or your company is the best to collaborate with.
Allow the other person to discuss their qualities if time permits. This can weed out a few things. You may have thought in the beginning that this would be a great collaboration on certain projects. But as the conversation grows, you learn either they are not the direct contact person you need to work with, possibly it's a colleague of theirs or after some time of talking and meetings, you discover that the collaboration wouldn't be beneficial for either parties at this current time.
Here's the part where that faithful calendar of yours comes in handy. Go out in the world and meet people who are doing what you are doing. For example, I typically meet with other entrepreneurs, authors, single parents, etc., depending on the crowd, at various places throughout Chicago, my home or theirs, to just brainstorm, share ideas, discuss the latest trends in our businesses or we discuss the latest woes of our businesses. You never know who knows someone who has the something that you are looking for and the better the rapport you build with people, the better your chances are to get the support you need just from networking.
Are you an artist? What art galleries have you visited lately? Is there FREE to low cost events posted online that involves artist. Go all out and start a group on Facebook targeting artist. No one will fully know you exist behind four walls on your computer all day you have to get out in this world and network.
Follow-up is the second component to networking. Some may see it as a tedious job but I don't. Whenever I'm out networking and I get business cards from potential partners in later endeavors, I almost always send them a follow-up email. I introduce myself, briefly discuss key points of our conversation from the other day or night and how I enjoyed talking to them and the likes. Now, timing is everything. I usually do this two days after I've met the person or sat in the meeting or training with them. Two days is long enough for that person, not to forget who you are. I also include in the email or follow-up phone call that I would love to meet with them soon to discuss how we can partner on our upcoming projects. Ladies and gentlemen, that is how you network. Don't just take business cards of people to only hoard them in your purse, wallets, shoe box or fancy business card holder on your desk and never use them. What good is that?
Bottom line: Networking is the key to building your brand, get started TODAY!
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