Resources

Building a phenomenal professional network

Resources

Building a phenomenal professional network

This page was last updated on September 25, 2024

In response to members' requests, our September Business Club explored how to build phenomenal professional networks. The event was a lively one, with club members expanding their connections and sharing insights on the essential ingredients for forging professional networks.

Most people would agree that having a strong professional network is a vital asset in business. While these networks can be a valuable source of new work opportunities and customer referrals, they bring many more benefits.

For example, they can help you:

Get help with any questions, problems or opportunities you have
Stay on top of industry developments
Raise your professional profile and build your brand
Learn more about your competitors’ activities

Furthermore, businesspeople can be nervous about the risk of problems when sourcing new suppliers and advisers. They often canvass the opinions of others in their selection process.

Professional networks can, therefore, be a valuable way to find someone with a good track record for a specific issue. Also, recommended customers/clients have been known to haggle less on fees and have shorter decision-making times.

What it takes to build an excellent professional network

Most successful business professionals agree that building an excellent network takes effort, sincerity and time.

For starters, it helps to spot suitable environments where you will meet professional contacts. Common examples include the workplace (for current and former colleagues), networking events, as part of professional and business groups, client/customer relationships, and among your customers’ other contacts and suppliers.

Meeting contacts is just the start of a long journey. You will need to impress, support, build rapport with them, and gain their trust.

Dale Carnegie, legendary business skills guru and author of the international best-seller How to Win Friends and Influence People, once said, “You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.”

Essential ingredients for building rapport and trust with your connections

Club members discussed the ingredients necessary to build rapport and trust with connections. Behaviours and qualities proposed included:

Investing time to keep in regular contact with connections
Having a genuine interest in people and being curious with a ‘how can I help’ mindset
Being supportive and generous
Listening and getting to know contacts
Being approachable, honest and realistic
Reliability – delivering what you said you would in the timeframe promised

How to keep in regular contact with connections in a way they value

The discussion also looked deeper into maintaining regular contact and what approaches people found helpful. Examples included:

Picking fewer networking events, but becoming a regular at the ones you value so you are a familiar face
Trying a variety of activities such as social media, events, social get-togethers and meetings to keep on people’s radars
Investing time to do one-to-one sessions with them so you can build your understanding of your contact and find ways to support them
Bringing a commercial outlook that helps a contact’s current situation – eg offering advice, insights, thoughts on opportunities, giving referrals
Finding ways to contribute and collaborate with them instead of looking at what you can take or gain

Educating contacts on what referrals you can help with

It can be challenging for connections to know what a good or bad referral for you might be. Club members agreed on the importance of tact and honesty. If a referral isn’t ideal, then suggesting an alternative provider instead of a flat ‘no’ is helpful.

Helping contacts better understand what you’re looking for means you need that clarity yourself. Knowing what you can/can’t help with or like/don’t like doing puts you in a stronger position to educate others on the circumstances or situations that point to your expertise.

You can also broaden people’s perceptions if they pigeonhole you for one specific skill. Of course, this is a two-way process; you also need to know what good referrals and opportunities for your contact would be.

Adding value to your connections

We ended the discussion by exploring ways to add value to connections. Examples shared included:

Going above and beyond to help a contact with a specific issue
Being prompt in your response to any requests for help or referrals passed on
‘Matchmaking’ contacts in your network so they can mutually benefit from working with one another
Helping people win business
Handling referrals with great care and keeping your contact updated on progress so their trust in you is justified and their reputation in recommending you isn’t undermined.

Summary

Most people recognise the importance of having a professional network. The quality of it, however, is very much dependent on how you nurture yours. Thinking of others first and having a genuine interest in your connections will give you a solid foundation to add value and impress.

Michelle Obama once said, “Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives”.

Thank you to all the Club members who supported our September event and shared their ideas. If you would like to attend our future Business Club events, please contact the Shipleys’ Godalming team for more information.

Specific advice should be obtained before taking action, or refraining from taking action, in relation to this summary.