Overall, I’m a fan of it, although my energy comes from in-person interactions, so I tend to give online networking, other than social media, a bit of a swerve.
You might not instantly think of networking when it comes to boosting your personal brand, but it should be an essential component of your visibility strategy.
How does networking help raise your profile?
Networking can be a cost-effective way of raising your profile as well as meeting potential
clients, collaborators and funders, especially early on in your business or career journey. As you progress your career, your networking strategy needs to evolve at the same pace. Your network needs to be different, because you need to consider who you want to raise your profile with. That’s going to impact where you network and how frequently.
When you’re early on in your career, you might network a lot, especially the free stuff. But as you increase your social capital, more people will invite you to events and you’ll need to get choosy, otherwise you’ll never get anything else done!
Attending events gets you known in the real world and gives you content to share online, as well as a great opportunity to connect and follow up with people you’ve met.
Regularly attend events to grow your connections
Great things can happen when you attend networking events, and the exciting part is it is often potluck. I’ve attended events that were rubbish: the ones where I got stuck by the coffee table chatting to an old accountant who prefers golf networking sessions. Get to the right events and you could strike gold.
There have been events where I’ve not seen the obvious value of attending, but have led to excellent chance conversations and, ultimately, sales. Recently, I was asked to speak at the launch of a local “women in business” awards. I was happy to support it, having been a previous winner, but was only expecting a nice morning out. I got talking to the other speaker over lunch and she indicated she would be interested in our services at Moja. Fast forward a couple of months, a meeting, a proposal and a follow up call, and we signed her up as a retainer client.
Another great example was at a charity event where I saw the owners of an activewear brand give the charity ambassador, a Dragons’ Den Dragon with a large social media following, a branded cap. Said Dragon often wears that cap on Instagram, giving priceless exposure to the brand.
The point of these examples? You’ve got to be in it to win it. It’s a bit like dating – are you going to meet the partner of your dreams if you stay in the house watching Netflix by yourself every night? Nope. You have to be out there meeting lots of different people, on or offline.
A word of caution though: although it’s wise to have goals for what you want to get from
networking, if you go in too hard for sales, it might have the opposite effect. People hate the hard sell. Using the dating analogy above, you wouldn’t propose to someone on the first date, so take time to build relationships. They will buy when the time is right.
Interested in learning more about networking? Sophie covers this in more detail in her new book ‘From Unknown to Unforgettable: how to build a personal brand that goes beyond the bio’. Available now Click here to pre order.
