WHAT KIND OF NETWORKING SUPPORT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Techniques on How to Network:

• Meet as many people as you can. Network everywhere, all the time–at business conferences or with your neighbors on a plane ride.
  
• Act like a host, not a guest. Guests wait to be introduced. A host introduces himself.
  
• Don't do business while networking. It's inappropriate and impractical. Make a date to meet your contact for drinks or lunch.
  
• Give and get. You can't always be a buyer. Do favors. They're like a savings account. Someday you may want to draw on it.
  
• Follow up. This is all-important. Meeting someone is just part of the battle.
  
• Keep in touch. Go through your Rolodexes. If you haven't talked to someone in a while, call just to say hello.

The Organization Man is dead. The patience he demonstrated for getting ahead is no longer a virtue. Gone is the knocking on doors, the cold calls, the waiting in the office. Any salesman riffling the telephone book for prospects is out of his mind. Today, we are a nation of networkers. Networking is the art of making and using contacts. It is the single-minded pursuit of useful contacts at every convention, seminar and neighborhood barbecue. And today networking is exploding. It is changing the way we do business and the way we socialize. Some people say it is purely a pragmatic technique, but the true networker knows it is more. The true networker proposes a new outlook. Previous societies considered every stranger an inherent threat. To the networker, every stranger represents an opportunity, the chance to find prospects, reach targets or meet friends.


Article from Success April 2010 by Richard Ellis