Networking: Why Waste Your Time?

Well, that is an interesting title for an article considering the fact that the writer is the CEO and Founder of a networking company Referral Leaders International.

But here is what I meant:

Not everything you think is networking is in fact networking.

Case in point, I had a brand new coaching client from Dallas this week that when I asked her “so what do you do for networking” answered this way:

“I have a movie night in my driveway one night a week for ladies in my neighborhood, I run a book club, I joined the chamber, I am volunteering at my kids school, I volunteered to serve on a committee for the city council, I am an officer in two charity groups…”

She was still going strong when I shouted in to the phone, “STOP!!!!“.

I went on to say, 90% of what you just told me is NOT networking.

Her response was interesting. She said, “thank you for confirming what I was feeling already”.

You see, she like so many others, equated a busy schedule as networking, when nothing could be further from the truth.

See if my definition of networking is anything close to what you are actually doing:

“Networking is when a group of likeminded professionals meet on a regular basis to exchange quality, permission-based referrals”.

It’s not a book club, or a coffee group, or even a Chamber event.

Can an occasional referral be given in those settings? Sure but that is NOT the purpose of those groups, so don’t fool yourself into thinking you are networking.

There is a shocking fact that I am seeing as I work with and speak to almost 1000 Realtors a month. When we ask the question, “How many of you are involved in organized networking”, only 4–5 hands go up.

This is in crowds of as many as 400 at one time.

Really?

Whatever happened to on-purpose, scheduled, organized and effective networking groups?

I can tell you, they feel stale, broken and out of touch with many of today’s professionals looking to build a referral based business.

Maybe you are in one of those groups and are getting ready to quit. Before you do, let me share some exciting things you can do to bring life back and increase the number of referrals given in your group.

Here are some easy to-do ideas:

• Set up a weekly event invite page and make ALL of your members’ admins on the event so they can invite their entire friends list every week.
• Have your members take pictures of the person next to them and post a shout out touting how great they are during the meeting time and offer to introduce them to their Facebook friends.
• Have the entire group take a picture and post a comment about that week’s featured presenter on social media outlets.
• Do a one minute video with the next weeks speaker to promote them speaking and tag everyone in the group.
• Encourage your members to do daily shouts out on social media for their fellow members.
• When they see a posting about something broken, or needing to be replaced make sure they are trained to respond with the member’s information.
• Be proactive in your postings, for instance if a snow storm is coming post that you have a great snow removal guy to recommend.

Using even a few of these ideas will produce a constant flow of increased referrals for your fellow members and may revitalize the entire chapter.

If you would like to learn more about innovative networking strategies you can follow me on Facebook, or contact me using the form on my home page.