Skilled Migrant Professionals Spring 2016 | Page 20

Business

The Truth About
Building
connections
to grow your
business

NET
WORK
ING

MANY BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS have a goal to increase referrals
for their business, however, with a misguided belief that success is due
to good luck or chance, they fail in their attempts. This can, therefore,
unfortunately encourage the misunderstanding that business networking is too difficult.
As a businesswoman and master networker, I believe that many business professionals don’t feel comfortable with, or successful at business
networking. They believe it happens by chance, that they need to have
an outgoing personality, or they simply dismiss it as a waste of time.
Take your first steps towards success by remembering this golden rule:
networking is about farming, not hunting. In other words, it is about
cultivating meaningful relationships, not just one-shot meetings.
As a business owner, I know first-hand how important and powerful
word-of-mouth referrals are to growing your business, as well as the
myths surrounding how to receive them.
Generating regular and quality word-of-mouth referrals takes far
more than a bit of luck and an outgoing personality. I regularly meet
professionals who don’t realise that by employing a few simple strategies, they can receive these referrals through business networking.
One simple strategy for business networking is to ensure you are a
part of at least three high-quality business networks that compliment
each other.
Colleagues in business that are successful in generating regular, quality word-of-mouth referrals through business networking follow this
strategy, and believe that there is enough business for everyone. They
are, therefore, more open to sharing contacts with trusted colleagues.
Word-of-mouth referrals can be a successful business growth strategy
within a short period of time. With this in mind, I recommend incorporating the following steps:

By Fleur Allen,
Director of Out
of the Box Biz

1. Adopt the mindset that there is enough business for everyone.
Networking is about farming (nurturing relationships), rather
than hunting for them.
2. Be open to sharing business contacts with colleagues.
3. Be a member of at least three quality, complementary business
networks.
4. Seek support in the form of information or education if you are
not succeeding.
5. Ask if a new connection is interested in continuing the conversation with you to see if they’re interested in what you do.
6. Practice networking regularly. It doesn’t matter what personality type you are, face-to-face communication needs to be practiced regularly.
7. Always, always, always follow-up. This is often the most commonly overlooked step, despite being the one that leads to
a high proportion of long-term business relationships. P