Networking Success

In the early 1980s, John Naisbitt wrote in Megatrends about the emerging importance of the networking process in society. Later, Tom Peters wrote in Thriving on Chaos that this "process can be systematized."

When you stop to think about it, these two statements weren’t made all that long ago. Networking and relationship marketing is a fairly new kid on the block. From the mid 80s to the 90s, systems and structures began to emerge that shifted a lot of business owners from a single-minded focus of direct selling to a broader scope which included relationship marketing and networking.

Several emerging issues and trends surrounding the process of networking are being created out of the need to find an effective way to develop business for entrepreneurs and sales people in this new century. This article will discuss three of the most prominent trends that I believe will become more important in the coming years.

Online and face-to-face networking
will both continue to flourish.

I’m a proponent of online networks such as www.Ecademy.com and others. I think they will continue to grow successfully and help many of their members; however, they are not the final answer to business marketing or to networking. They are another great tool for people who want to connect with others (especially outside their local geographic area).

On my Referrals For Life Blog (http://referrals.ducttapemarketing.com), someone recently wrote, "I don’t know that it is true anymore that referrals are about relationships." He went on to basically say that technology is changing the rules and that just participating in a website will be good enough. Well, in one word, I’d have to say…. WRONG!

Referrals are, and will be for the foreseeable future, all about relationships. Whether they are relationships built online or face-to-face, they will still involve relationships. People refer people they know and trust. They will not regularly refer someone just because they are listed on a website: that’s called advertising, not networking.

Online networking works, but relationships must still be part of the process. Using the internet to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and increase your visibility will be imperative in the coming years. Virtual networking is a trend that is really catching on in many circles, and some people involved in face-to-face networking feel threatened, as if online networking is going to replace their tried and true system.

Those who foretell the demise of face-to-face networking fail to note the fact that face-to-face networking groups continue to expand. The growth rate of my own referral networking organization, BNI (www.bni.com), bears this out. Since the internet first became popular in the mid 90s, BNI has experienced a 1,186 percent growth rate (that is not a typo!).

The more "high-tech" business owners become, the more they really need to foster those "high-touch" opportunities that face-to-face networking affords.

Virtual networking can be an effective way to increase your business, and the internet can certainly be a great tool for staying in touch, but I don’t think it will replace face-to-face networking in our lifetime.

Technology flattens the communication hierarchy and provides opportunities to improve your networking efforts, not replace them. I believe people who understand this will begin to effectively use technology without replacing relationships, to take their marketing to new levels in the years to come.

Training in networking and social capital
will continue to be done by private professionals
rather than colleges and universities.

Don’t hold your breath for the colleges and universities of the world to begin teaching networking and social capital. At this point there are only two colleges in the world that offer regular, core-curriculum college courses on networking and social capital. One class is at Davis College in Ohio and is taught by Debby Peters. The other is at the University of Michigan and is taught by Wayne Baker. That’s it: two colleges.

The college and university systems are behemoths of bureaucracy that are so far behind the curve of small business development that I’m beginning to despair that they will ever catch on. Most professors have never had a real job in the business world and are completely out of touch with what is happening in real life, especially in small business.

I predict that the current trend in networking and social capital education will emerge in the form of private professional training organizations in much the same way that private industry has controlled the educational market on "sales techniques" (another area in which colleges fail miserably). Companies such as the Referral Institute (www.referralinstitute.com) are starting to pop up. They offer training to business owners who want to learn how to harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing. These companies teach the techniques and systems of networking, social capital, and referral marketing with a refined, polished slate of seminars and training sessions.

Small companies will continue to have
the business networking edge over big companies

For the most part, big companies are clueless about building sales through the networking process. Most big business is just a notch or two above the universities in the "you can’t tell me anything new" department. They continue to teach salespeople traditional methodologies while relying heavily on advertising to create buzz. Mind you, there’s nothing inherently wrong with these strategies. The problem is that big companies don’t effectively add referral marketing to the process.

When it comes to developing social capital and the networking process, small business is king. Big business is slow to move out of the mindset of splashy ad campaigns, big dollars spent on traditional marketing, and the same-old, same-old.

If big corporations ever get it, watch out, but so far, they have been slow to act. Even programs such as the U.S. "Do Not Call" registry have not yet moved big companies into understanding how to train their people to network effectively.

If big business ever does ever get it, however, they’re likely to run over the little guys. They will learn how to develop social capital and will teach their people how to do true relationship marketing. For now, there are only a few—and I mean very few—forward-thinking big companies who consistently apply these concepts. For the rest, it is a trend to watch for in the distant, distant future.

When The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret came out in 1994, it was one of the few books in the bookstores that talked about networking. Now there are dozens, if not hundreds. An entire industry has been born over the last decade that is now being codified and refined. Over the next several years, you will see more and more about the importance of networking to build your business. It is developing into a science as well as a way of life.

These trends are not just an American phenomenon but also an international one. The introduction of International Networking Week (www.InternationalNetworkingWeek.com) is a prime example of how this approach to doing business is growing worldwide.

Small business development through the process of building social capital will continue to grow in the global market we are currently experiencing. No one has a crystal ball, but based on what I’m seeing and what I’ve seen in the past, I believe these are some of the key trends relating to networking and referral marketing over the next few years.

 

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Contact Ivan IvanM@TheNationalNetWorker.com or via TNNW Blog.