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If you are a business owner ask yourself:
Do you have a business plan?
This is one of the first things a bank will ask you when you ask them for money. This is one of the first things a business coach like myself will ask you. Whether you have one in place or not, you probably know you should have.
Do you have a marketing plan?
Where are you going to spend your marketing dollar this year? How are you going to judge your ROI? You need to do your market research and work out what marketing strategies you can use to grow your business. Again, pretty much every business owner knows that they need one whether they have written it yet or not.
Do you have a networking plan?
As a business owner you are probably less likely to answer yes to this question than the first two. Does that mean that you are planning to fail in networking.
Did you know that 98% of business owners say that they rely on word of mouth marketing and referrals for their business yet only 3% have a plan to maximize those referrals.
My coaching clients will tell you that I believe goals and plans are very important – otherwise how can you measure your success? I was working last weekend but I did manage to catch some of the AFL Grand Final.
My question to you is this:- Two teams kick and pass the ball around for four quarters of football and show great skill, stamina and speed. If there were no goals in position how would anyone know who had won (succeeded) at the end of the match?
Networking for your business is no different – if you don’t have a goal and a plan, how do you know if you have been successful.
Networking Plan
An overall networking plan should address at least the following points:-
How much business do you currently achieve through networking?
How much business would you like to achieve through networking?
What type of events do you need to attend for your business?
· Where will your potential customers or clients be?
· Where will your potential joint venture partners be?
· What are your competitors doing?
How much time and money are you willing and able to invest in your networking? (This should include both on- and offline networking.)
Networking Event Plan
As well as the overall annual networking plan that you have, you need to have a separate plan or goals for each event that you attend. If you are going to an event for the first time and there are going to be 500 people in the room, it is unrealistic to expect that you will speak to everyone and even more unrealistic to expect that you will make good connections and/or do business with everyone.
I personally set myself goals that are something like this.
For an event where there are more than 200 people, my goals would be
· Meet at least 6 new people.
· Reconnect with at least 5 people that I have not spoken to in a while.
· Agree to follow up with 5 of those people at a private meeting.
· Aim to do new business with 3 of those people.
For a smaller event my goals would be similar, just on a smaller scale
· Meet 2-3 new people.
· Reconnect with at least 3 people that I have not spoken to in a while.
· Agree to follow up and do new business with 3 people.
Because of the way I work when networking I would also have goals around
· How many people I would like to be able to introduce to the people they need to meet.
· How many of my personal contacts that are also at the event I will be able to introduce to new people.
· How many new leads/referrals can I generate for the members of my BNI chapter.
Having plans and goals like this for each event makes attending the events easier as my focus is able to be more exact and it makes the large group of people less overwhelming. It also enables me to focus on helping other people, which improves the relationships I already have. And most importantly this allows me to evaluate each event that I attend as to whether it has been successful and a good investment of my time and money.
If you would like some help in developing a networking plan for your business please contact me directly on 0404 090016 or ruth.thirtle@gmail.com . | 
