GUEST BLOG: The modern day networker – what skills do they really need?

By award-winning author Heather Townsend

Gaining business by referral is still seen as the best way to generate new business. However, there are many myths, particularly around networking and referral generation, which are preventing sales professionals from winning business.

Let’s look at these myths:

1. You can only win big-ticket work by networking face-to-face

Time and time again, I hear people say things like ‘you can only win big ticket work by networking face-to-face’. Actually, it’s pretty tough to find and convert any big-ticket work, regardless of your sales skills. It normally takes a strong established relationship before any business is invited to tender for a big-ticket piece of work.

By perpetuating the myth that you can win big pieces of work just by working the room, the hard work of establishing and maintaining these relationships tends to get pushed to one side. The modern day networker needs to focus more time on building and maintaining relationships to generate high quality pieces of work. This can be done very effectively via a mixture of communication methods, e.g. social media, email, phone, face-to-face time.

As the maturity and pace of online communications grow, the modern day networker needs to be able to use both online and offline networking tools.

2. It’s all about relationships

Before social media became a major business development tool, it was all about the contents of your little black book. The best sales people always seemed to know enough of the right type of people. Something would always turn up! Consequently most sales professionals using networking activity to generate referrals, made sure that they turned up at the right events, had lunch with the right people and ran the occasional seminar.

That was then, and this is now. It is still all about relationships for the modern day networker. However, the access which social media has given to clients and customers has meant far more choice than ever before. Consequently, buyers  will typically favour better expertise or specialization when considering who to hire.

Therefore, before you start networking with intent, make sure you have a strong brand which will help you and your business stand out from your peers and competitors.

3. All you need to be able to do is ‘work the room’

If I mention the word ‘networking’ to you, what comes into your mind? I’m guessing you are thinking about going out to an event where you meet and greet strangers and exchange small talk over canapés and drinks? Have you noticed how much harder it is to get people to attend networking events? Time is now very precious to people, and as a result attendance at networking events is dropping.

The modern day networker needs to be able to use all the networking tools in order to generate business from their network, without making networking their day job. This means using tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking sites to save time to easily find the right people to talk to. Any face-to-face networking time needs to be used to talk to the right people, rather than hoping the right people will turn up.

4. It’s all about what happens in the room

Actually, it’s really not now about what happens in the room. It’s what happens before you get in the room and what you do after you have been in the room. Do you have your own personal networking strategy and plan? Or are you just turning up to an event in hope? Before you can win work through your network you will need a strong and credible online footprint.

In summary

Winning new business from your network, without relying on cold calling, is far more than just working the room. If you don’t have the skills to use online networking tools, establish a credible online footprint, and establish and maintain relationships, you could be leaving a huge amount of business on the table.