Many people understand business networking as ‘selling’ yourself, your business or product on a one to one basis to the people in the room with you, but that’s not the case.

Building Relationships

Business networking is a lot more about relationship building. As you ‘work a room’, you may find people who are in a competitive or similar business niche to you and your company and, in normal circumstances, you may well avoid them. I’d like you to think about them another way. Consider what you can learn from a competitor, what you can share with a business in a related niche It’s thinking like this that enables people to become successful business networkers. Sharing is a vital element of business networking.

Make yourself Attractive

Business networking is more about making yourself and your companyproductservice attractive to others than just selling to them. How many ways can you think of to ‘share’ with another business What can you give as ‘added value’ to a prospect What social platform can you use to attract prospects What information are you willing to share freely What is it about yourself that will encourage other business owners to refer someone to you These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself before embarking on some serious business networking. » Read more: The Qualities of a Successful Business Networker