Man is a social animal. This being the primary reason for the existance of a civilized society, we conciously network with people on a day-to-day basis. Networking has been of prime importance since the era of colonisation, and with industrialisation to the men in marketing field, and off late, every other person is feeling the need of networking and keeping their network strong and healthy as it has become the key to success. Success here defines a business deal, publicizing your product or a new job that you have landed through your networking.
1. Alma Mater
Your best contacts are your classmates from school and college. These are people you grew up with, and know off really well even at a personal level, hence, can expect little favours from them. Especially, the ones from college, because quite obviously you share the same profession. So make sure you hold on to these people real tight. Attend all the alumini functions, catch up a few times in a year for dinner or coffee. Also keep a good watch on their new updates on Linkedin, rope them in when you need to bank on their networks.
2. Friend in need, is a friend indeed !
You need to make friends, and not just friends but good friends at your workplace. With the latest trend of jumping jobs, these friends will be the most useful networks in your professional life. Over a period of 5 years, you need to have built a strong network through your friends in your old workplace, and the ones who have jumped jobs, and probably, friends of friend who you would have met over for a drink, or a karaoke party, may be !
3. Don’t lose out on information
Once you have done your bit of the talking, delivering and proving yourself, and earned yourself the little business card or many cards for the night, don’t lose out on them. Pick the ones with more leverage to you and use your phone to feed all the contact information you need from that card. Now, set your phone on automatic sync to cloud, and bam, you can never lose out on this contact again!
4. Charm
Well, attending all the social and official events might be crucial to getting to know of your contacts. But what is important is they know of you too. To grab their attention, you need to have the gift of gab with the right amount of charm added to it, irrespective of your job skills. These are the qualities required off a good-businessman-in-the-making. Learn the sly tactics of slipping in your point and purpose of the conversation in the middle of the ‘talk’. Use this to sell your ideas to them, and get their business cards.
5. Smile and nod
With all the attempts of socialising for networking comes the pain of listening to boring talks too. The trick that never fails is that of- Smiling and nodding- my friend!
You don’t know what the other person is talking about, or are really uncomfortable with the suggestions, or don’t approve of it ? Just smile and nod. You don’t want to upset these people as they are potential clients or employers or businessmen with respect to your profession.