I tweeted this networking tip last week:

 “Set yourself a specific goal 4 each networking event you attend. Then measure your effectiveness.”

 Someone replied and said “ Love that idea but it's easier said than done, isn't it? How do you get conversations to happen as you would like?”

 What a great question!  And the answer is all in the goals you set.

 First of course you can set the standard highly achievable networking type goal… “Meet and exchange business cards with at least five people and follow up afterwards”

 Unless it is a very lonely networking event that’s not hard to achieve but in my view it’s not a very useful goal either.

 What 5 people do you want to meet?  What is your business objective?  When I first started networking those were the sorts of goals I set.  I attended a LOT of networking events and drank a lot of cups of coffee for absolutely NO result!

 Your networking goals need to be directly linked to your business objectives. Otherwise how do you justify the time and money you spend on networking events and how do you measure the ROI?.

 So lets talk about business objectives.

 The obvious networking objective for most people is “to get new clients”.  So traditionally we prepare our beautiful 30 or 60 second infomercial designed to captured potential client’s interest in the amazing results we will achieve for them.

 When I first started networking 8 years ago with my new web-design business my first step was to network for clients and armed with my well rehearsed 60 second infomercial that is exactly what I did. But I learned pretty quickly that that didn’t work. 

 No-one goes to a networking event to be sold to.  But there we all are with our yellow pages ads pinned on our foreheads exchanging the wonders of what we do and feeling like used car salesmen.  It’s what most small business owners think they have to do at a networking event.  They hate doing it.  They hate being on the receiving end of it.  But they still keep doing it.  It’s what gives networking such a bad name and worse still it doesn’t work!

 So what’s an alternative networking objective?

 After I had been in business for about three months and having very little success with my networking our franchise company issued a newsletter about a franchisee in Ireland who had built a highly successful business using these things call “strategic alliances” .  Well I had no idea what they were but I wasn’t very successful so I thought I had better see what he had been doing.

It turned out that he had built his entire business working with printers from all around Ireland.  Whenever a printer came across a client who didn’t have a website (and back then there were plenty) he offered them a complementary  internet marketing assessment from his colleague the web-designer.

 So I changed my networking goal.  Instead of networking in the hope of meeting people who wanted a website I set the goal of either meeting or getting an introduction to at least three printers from every networking event I attended.  

 Instead of feeling uncomfortable “selling” myself I simply asked as part of the conversation.. I’m looking for a good printer that I might be able to create a working relationship with.  Can you recommend one?  

 Then I realised it wasn’t just printers I could work with but also graphic designers, photographers, computer repairers, business coaches, copywriters.. the list goes on.

 I stopped selling myself at networking events and started looking for connections with people that I could create WIN WIN relationships with.

 So what are your networking goals and how are you managing the conversations to achieve them?

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 If you would like to learn more about how you can use strategic alliances to network and grow your business visit www.networkingworld.net.au for free resources and information.