Opportunities come to you in a variety of ways:
Referrals. These are by far the most desirable. These come from people who generally have a great deal of respect for you, and they feel that they can trust you with their contacts.
Advocates. Advocates are people who follow you. Once you discover who they are, it is amazing what the cross-section of talent is.
Colleagues. I consider this group part of my peer group. They are in many ways my competition, but they bring certain specialties to the table that I can draw from. You could call them “strategic competition.”
Friends. We associate generally with people who share our values and interests.
Live Networking
Getting out into your community and meeting people allows you the luxury of sizing up people by how they handle themselves. You’d be surprised at the amount of talent that exists with an hours drive of you. When you’re networking, don’t just mine this resource for new business, BUT talent as well. You know the market you operate in, look for people who could make your services more compelling.
Online Networking
Sites like Linkedin are terrific networks to find talent with which to expand your service network. As you start to see individuals with talents that appeal to you, start the conversation. Look for ways that you can reach out to them. Give first. This is true for any situation, online or off. Showing your willingness to help them, makes you a trusted contact to them.
Blogging
Whether it is my blog and several other blogs that I frequent, you would be surprised at the number of followers you eventually become acquainted to. Over the years respect for one another grows and because you are all essentially in the same community, certain expertise is realized and the opportunity to share in it rises. In several cases I have built a pitch for new business, from the unique expertise that I have acquired from blogging associates. They in return have brought opportunities my way.
I am always on the look out for opportunities that will help grow my circle of influence. So if networking for new business doesn’t appeal to you, then maybe the fit is discovering new resources that you can add to you roster that will enable you to go after business, previously out of reach.
Ed,
These are all good tools to use to expand your reach in the marketplace. I would also add that none of these tools are wrong or right but how you work with them is. No matter what you do, be consistent and have a plan.
You’re right Brandon. You must be goal-oriented for anything to have impact. You ca’t go through the motions and expect results just because you show up. That goes for on and off line networking. Get into the conversation and show what YOUR brand stands for and why anyone should give a damn about what you have to offer.
Thanks for commenting.
Generous competition! As a small business owner myself I’ve always found your articles helpful and informative. Good luck.
If we would simply put to use the things outlined in this blog we would go very far. All of this requires a little time but if we will work at it, it will pay off. Networking like this will set us apart as an expert in our field in no time.
Your article brings great information to me. I also started like this when I had my personal blog then it grew to a business website. I will share this to my fellow bloggers and to those starters so that they could get inspiration from your article.
I use blogging quit a lot to get to know new people and network. Things I haven’t into yet for building a team is LinkedIn and other business related networking sites like that.
Seems I should widen my horizon a little. Thanks for the ideas!
Do you have a blog Alex? I think you’ll like Linkedin – especially the groups, because the discussions are just like blogging. That’s what appeals to me. Even locally, there are some groups that allow me to network. Locally we’ve met off line as well.
Thanks for commenting.
Blogs are great for building a community and finding like-minded folk. I have had lots of luck finding good peeps through commenting on others comments!
Thats a superb team building technique that you have discussed . Excellent writing.
Alex has a blog? I think you’ll like LinkedIn – particularly groups, because blog is the same discussion. This is what attracted me. Even locally, there are some groups I to the network.
I make lots of contacts through my blogging efforts. It’s fascinating really. On another note: I’m sorry to respond so late as I was distracted by a tornado hitting our property last Sunday, no injuries but lots of damage.
We can’t really hide the fact that social networking sites and blogs are very helpful in team building. More resources, much better cause you can really maximize everything with all of these stuffs. Contacts are very important for the success of every business.
Thanks Josh. The more channels there are the better teams that are built.
Thanks for your input here.