In today the professional networks is damn important. Whether it is a student, professional employee, supervisors, professionals, retired officers, housewives too. Joining professional associations is a great way to meet people in the field and membership dues are usually offered at a reduced student rate. Developing relationships will keep you in the communication loop and provide you with ties to important contacts and key players. Show your appreciation by sending thank you notes. Maintain your network by keeping in touch with the people you meet and also update them on your progress. Do not forget that Professional networking is the creation and cultivation of business friendships and acquaintances.
Those who do so effectively know its value. It is the life blood of strong and stable careers and businesses. After you start adding names to your list of professional contacts, you need to cultivate those relationships. Cultivation requires you to both organize your contacts and maintain regular correspondence with them. Developing professional networks is a great way to establish links with other providers, existing services, resources, and professional support. Start within staff in your immediate team and then expand out from there. Take the time to find out what other people are doing, how their role fits in with yours, and how you may be able to work together.
For a newbie in the market of building professional networking you can simply follow the following steps to get into the world of professional networks successfully.
First & foremost build a list of contacts:
You can start with the contacts you already know like your alumni; you can also sort your contacts according to the area of interests or specialization. Now is the action time, contact your contacts call them get known of them their interests as well as the details of their career paths and professional network as well. Once this is done talk to them on regular basis. Customization on your conversation since from LinkedIn requests to Facebook messages are some or the other way customized to 140-character chatter on Twitter, you should customize every communication sent on social networks. You can also join in communities which are not just individuals with a common geographic location or communities of practice, but also a group of individuals who share a purpose built on social norms, values and expectations. Such communities may exist within the organization or across organizations.
The most simplest process is
Know your goals
2. Identify some relevant people
3. Court these people individually
4. Meet each person face-to-face
5. Exchange drafts of your writing
6. Follow up
Developing effective networking methods will help you get a new job, advance your creditability and visibility in your field, expand your abilities, and dramatically improve your employability and promotability. Through your networks, you will meet mentors, as well as become a mentor yourself, which will further expand your abilities and your connections. Everyone has a number of networks available to them, any of which has the potential to produce a job offer. The following are networks that are available to everyone, and should be utilized:
What isn’t networking?
About getting a job or sale
Finding someone with influence to pull strings
Forcing someone to meet with you and help
If you are thinking form where to get in contacts and if you feel it’s just the business events, it is not, you can contacts even from industry events, conferences and professional associations are great places to publicize your services and look for business and professional opportunities, many of the best networking scenarios happen off the convention floor. When you be distinctive you get remembered easily and hence the networking gets much easier, now how can we get distinctive – you can be distinctive in thoughts as well as in your practice, be totally present in the discussion that you are in, ask some thought provoking questions, reinforce your keywords, contribute to the group conversation. Also focus on the quality of contacts as well as the quantity. Manage the first impression; get them known of what you do, then as usual follow up after the events or discussions if any.
When in a discussion, feel free to speak up. Show your smarts and contribute to the conversation. Networking should be authentic, building trust and relationships, and seeing how you can help others. Call those you meet who may benefit from what you do and vice versa. How can you develop relations & what other techniques can you use to build in relations, well you can spot opportunities for others in this way you can get in continual relations with people as well as you can give free advice to people, provide testimonials, make positive introductions. Provide the one in front of you to talk first and express his views, exchange business cards, talk to ones whom you haven’t met before, let the person in front of you how long would you like to talk to them again.