In the last article about introduction to business networking, I talked what the term means and how it benefits entrepreneurs in various ways

Here’s a quick recap to give you brief overview on business networking:

Business networking refers to the practice of meeting people to collaborate, share knowledge and cultivate mutually-beneficial professional relationships. Forming such connections helps you in broadening your knowledge base about various business fields and it also applies to working professionals in different sectors.

Entrepreneurs use their networks to discover new investment opportunities, promote their brand(s), attract more customers amd diversify into different business segments. On the other hand, working professionals use their networks for referrals, new job opportunities and expanding their skillset in a bid to industry experts and leaders.

Different Types of Business Networking Organizations

Now that you’re aware about what networking is and how it is highly beneficial, let’s talk about how to network effectively through various networking organisations in order to forge those professional relationships:

1) Strong Contact Networks

Organizations formed with members from different professions are known as strong contact networks. The members meet at frequent intervals, weekly in most cases, with each profession having an upper limit of one or two representatives. 

Having people from different fields diversifies the groups and provides highly focused and specialized opportunities through referrals. Moreover, since most strong contact networks restrict each field to only have one representative, there is no internal competition to get referrals.

For instance, you might be the only marketing executive in your strong contact network, so all marketing referrals will exclusively be yours to capitalize.

2) Casual Contact Networks

Casual contact networks have a large number of members from overlapping professions and they try to socialize in casual settings through mixers, monthly events and more.

In such groups, the potential to find clients is high because of the large number, however, one needs to make more targeted efforts since there is more competition and fewer referrals.

3) Professional or Trade Associations

Such associations are formed by people from the same profession or trade such as chartered accountants, bankers, entrepreneurs, traders etc. Such platforms serve as a medium of engaging in meaningful discussions, conducting training sessions and workshops, sharing ideas and increase their scope of knowledge.

People are able to solve each other’s queries and problems which also leads to the development of long-lasting relations that can often lead to doing business together or finding interesting jobs and projects.

4) Community Service Clubs

As part and participants in a society, it is the moral and social responsibility of entrepreneurs and working professionals to give back to the community.

Engaging in community service clubs is a great way to do so while also getting the opportunity to interact and work with your peers. Increasing your social reputation and helping people also increases your goodwill, personal image as well as your brand visibility.

5) Social Media Networks

Not only does social media allow you to build your brand, earn credibility and reach a much wider audience; it also facilitates networking with like-minded people across continents and time-zones.

Networking online is arguably the easiest and fastest way to connect with more people and absorb a wide array of ideas since you are able to transcend time barriers and save on travel costs as well.

Written by Gagan Dhawan