Networking

Why network?

Networking is critical in the search of business contracts: not only for freelance contracts, but also for small businesses. With a majority of the working population working and another small percentage who are self employed, the skill is going to become even more critical for you in the future. In the small business sector, particularly, that marketing is so important yet so difficult to do it cost effectively. But there are several trends coming up which are making these conventional routes to the decision-maker less effective.

• There are now so many publications and TV channels that you have to place many ads to reach out to enough people to make a difference. And the standard of the ads is such that you need to spend a large amount of money just to stand out from the 1,200 or so advertising messages we see everyday.
• People are all aware of the hype around them so persuading them will be a difficult task.
• As information about business increases, so competition gets hotter as everybody wants to match customer demands and get their notice.

For all these reasons, you need to be cleverer than the competition. You need to think subtle and indirect. Working hard is not enough…you need to work smarter. Networking is necessary for you in so many ways. You need information about what contracts are coming up before anybody does. You need to build visibility with your target audience in order that you become seen as the natural choice for the work. And you need to be known by the decision-maker personally or through a personal connection so that he/she will know your reputation where skills are hard to measure. Networking increases the odds of avoiding the costly competitive nature of pitching and winning contracts. It is an art in itself.

There are three key techniques in networking:

Step 1- Overcoming your inhibitions

Step 2- The three key networking techniques