Marketing your trade through networking

Marketing through making contacts

It's all about who you know! have you ever heard someone say this to you about your business? Well they are wrong, it's all about who knows you, who

remembers, likes and trusts you and that they know you care about them and their business. This sort of relationship tends not to be built overnight and this is what networking is about, building relationships. This way when they need their electrics sorting out or an extension built or more importantly people they know need work doing you are the person that gets the call! 

Of course then, the more people that know, like and trust you the easier it is to grow your business!

What is business networking?

Business networking is where business owners meet on a regular basis to make contact, meet other business, share knowledge and refer each other business by using each others products or services or to refer to other people.

Can this form of marketing work for me?

Soon after I started my electrical business in 2005 I started going to business networking events, I went to lots of different networking events and I mean a lot, The main one I joined was BNI or Business Network International (more on this later) from BNI alone in that first year I had £23k worth of business, networking in general works exceptionally well, so long as you do it right.

How do Networking meetings work?

There are a wide variety of networking groups around the country, there does seem to be an inordinate amount in Hertfordshire though! we have about 12 groups in Hertford and Ware alone! If you're willing to travel a bit you could probably network Morning to night Monday to Friday.

Groups meet either weekly, bi-weekly or monthly and either in the morning,

afternoon or evening and some you get fed and some you just get coffee and tea.
Personally I've found that the monthly events don't work as well as you don't see the members/attendees often enough to build relationships.

Some of the groups have structured meetings where you get to market your business by doing a sixty second talk about your business and the sort of business referrals that you are looking for or who you would like to speak to. Some meetings are informal gatherings where you get to mingle, these are usually the monthly meetings.

I've found the best meetings to be the structured ones where you get 60 seconds to let people know what you want. 

How does this BNI work?

Business Networking International has been running for over 20 years and is the oldest networking organisation of it's type in the world. I've had the best return on investment for all of my businesses from BNI hands down.

It is a weekly meeting, it is a structured meeting and there are weekly commitments such as you are expected to bring either a testimonial for the other members, a visitor or a referral, some people don't like this however it's what makes it work! 
BNI has a philosophy of 'Givers Gain' so if I refer you business, you'll want to find me business, this is also known as karma - what goes around comes around.

Once you join a BNI group (They call chapters: Yes it's American, but who cares!) you lock out your competitors from joining therefore only you get referrals to jobs.

Build a marketing referral team

If you focus on just building really strong relationships with a few people you'll create a fantastic team that consistently will refer you to people, but remember a relationship is a 2 way thing so you always need to be on the lookout for business to refer to them too. 



So get out and network your business, search for business networking and try out the different groups to see which ones work for you.

To your Success
Paul Jennings

Ps. To read my top tips for networking visit my site and go to the Top Tips section here