Today I was interviewed for a local magazine that happened through someone reaching out to me. I did not pitch this reporter, but rather he found me and thought that I would provide an interesting twist on his topic. He went out on a leap and emailed me. This got me thinking back to yesterday when……
I noticed an interesting tweet. It read something like ‘Retweet someone who you never interact with on Twitter because cliques are not cool.’ Almost instantly, I realized that this message would be a part of my overall business manifesto for 2012. A resolution of sorts.
In the coming year, reaching out on a leap of faith and growing my network is a priority.
At the beginning of last year, I was fairly new in my business mission so I was engaged in CRAZY networking efforts. I was continually putting myself out there to meet a multitude of new and different people. It was an effort and required a lot of work. Somewhere during the year, I became comfortable with my group of people and/or burned out, so I was not networking as much.
At this point, a clique naturally formed. When I needed some vital information or advice or opinion, I turned to this group. Although, I admire all of these people tremendously, it does me NO good to always turn to the same people. Growing, changing, and evolving business requires constant introduction of fresh information and people.
Therefore, in 2012 I urge you (and ME) to up the ante and grow our sphere of influence. I am going back to a grassroots approach to networking.
To help both of us as we approach 2012, here are
4 Leap of Faith Networking Tips:
1 – See your business through a different avenue. Attend one event/month that you normally would NEVER attend. For example, if you are an interior designer and you typically attend design related events, try an outing for life coaches – I bet you this is an awesome area to partner. Life coaches help others make life changes, and with those changes may come changes in their clients’ interior design. The referral possibilities are endless.
2 – Host an out of your realm event. Plan an event, a quick lunch or dinner with a speaker that is not YOU, but rather someone that would provide insight/discussion for others. Choose a topic with widepsread importance, and make an awesome first impression on new people. This is a spectacular way to get people to remember YOU as the one who put this all together.
3 – Play the name game. Get your eyes off that name tag. Rather than walk up to someone and immediately focus on their name tag to say hello, INTRODUCE yourself. It goes something like this, ‘HI, I am Rachel, and you are?’ Hearing someone say their name makes it much easier to put it in your memory bank.
4 – Invest in the future with genuine follow-up. Do not just add this new contact to your mailing list and forget about them! Make time to engage with them in some way (Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Coffee) over the coming weeks, and form something solid for the year(s) to come.
I wish all of you a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2012 full of Amazing Ideas and Powerful Networking.
Join me on my blog, http://backngroovemom.com for next year’s adventures. Rachel
