Building Confidence When Networking
In the launch of How To Build A Profitable Business Network (BPN for short) we have
invited site visitors and clients to reveal to us their most significant challenge with regards to the process of transforming contacts into relationships and relationships into rewarding business.
The number one response was unsuprisingly Lack of self-assurance.
Lets briefly investigate why this is with two stories:
In 2008 I set up my first business club in my home town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Central England. In a very short time it grew to become a very successful and sought after club to belong to.
We approached the local motor vehicle repair and recovery firm to see if they might be interested in joining us. Wonderfully they did and their Operations Manager Martin became a regular participant at our fortnightly breakfast and lunchtime meetings.
It is reasonable to suggest that Martin was truly and visibly frightened when he started off, not unlike like a Rabbit in the headlights. All of us struggled to get a peep out of him. Nevertheless after a few meetings he did get going and it wasnt before long that his self confidence in the organization was there for all to see.
In my capacity as an executive coach I work with senior executives to develop and hone their capability and self confidence to persuade and influence others. One among my clients is a Financial Director in a rapidly growing multi-national UK based business. She is ready to move into an operational role as an MD of one of the businesses.
She was terrified once we brought up the subject of networking at events where a) she had no agenda other than to mix and mingle and b) she would have to introduce herself or be introduced to new people. Give her a spreadsheet, some numbers and a purpose to a meeting then she was unbelievably amazing, add some ambiguity then she was in her words lost not knowing what to do or how to do it.
These stories illustrate that in networking you will be meeting people for the first time and, for a number of people, this can be very scary. Unless you have been brought up both through childhood and your career to spend time mingling with lots of people and developing your social interaction skills you may struggle.
You also need to be able to put over in a very short concise way what it is you do, why you are so good and why the person you are speaking to should spend some time with you learning about your products and services.
You may be called on to speak to groups and for many public speaking is a huge fear. In the UK it is in the top three fears of adults along with heights and creepy crawlies.
You may also decide that you really should master the rapidly changing world of Social Media.
Put all this together and you have many reasons why you may lack confidence:
You may well be entering territory which is taking you right out of your comfort zone
You see others who seem to be able to do it all effortlessly and this can be quite intimidating
You recognise that you have a steep learning curve and all learning takes effort with many bumps along the way
You may be putting a great deal of effort in with minimal reward
You may truly despise the whole idea of marketing and selling yourself and your products and services.
So what are you able to do to develop self assurance? Successful business networking and indeed a successful life relies on have a sense of certainty about what it is that you do, being excellent at how well you do it and the persistence to keep going.
There are a variety of hallmarks of confident people.
1.Firstly you need a strong sense of purpose about what it is you want to do, why you want to do it and a plan to help you get there
2.Secondly you should accept that you are going to have to master some new skills and model people who have already been where you aspire to go
3.Next you need to diarise time to work on self-development
4.Next you need to take consistent and purposeful actions
5.You need to accept seek, accept and act on feedback from people whose opinions you value
6.Finally you need to constantly record and review your progress and adapt your approach as you move forward
We put together the video programme
How To Build A Profitable Business Network to help you with step 2. BPN is there to help you short circuit your route to success.
Most people start networking with the idea that you just start attending events and see what happens. Successful people dont do this. They learn from people who already have achieved what they want and they model what they do. BPN is the product of watching and learning from true masters of networking.
by: Geraldo Volmar
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