Yesterday I wrote about how your goals affect your social media engagement. But what about goals and face to face?

Naturally, they affect each other. But how? Glad you asked! Let’s examine a few case studies.

1. Networking for clients

This is an obvious goal for many sales people and small business owners. But the strategies will be different depending on your specific goals and number of clients needed.

Need a few clients a year (5-6)? You might network directly for clients by going to where your target market hangs out and talking to and building relationships with the right people. Or you might network your way to a few solid strategic partners. Many of your conversations will be specifically about the benefits of working with you, though of course listening for needs and making referrals is always a required part of networking.

Need more clients each year (10-50)? Your strategy will probably be similar to the example above, though you might cast your net a bit more widely. You might attend more general networking events as a way to get the word out about you and what you do. Strategic partners will still be key. Giving referrals and finding people to refer your clients too will be important because you are in contact each year with enough people with needs. And you’ll want to educate those people you refer so they refer you in return.

Need lots of clients (100+)? Strategic partners will be required. You’ll probably be doing other forms or marketing to supplement your networking efforts. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to network your way to that many clients. In fact, you might network less for clients than for people to refer and those who can refer you.

2. Networking for a job

Completely different goals from above. Networking for clients is an ongoing effort. Well, so is networking for a job, but in a different way. A business always needs new clients while you probably only need one job right now. When you are networking for a job, your message is very direct and your efforts look much like someone in sales. But when you’ve landed the job, your efforts will change focus. Now you’ll be helping and referring others and banking as much good will as possible for when you need to activate your network for the next job. By the way, this is the part most job seekers let lapse. Once they find the job, they quit networking until they are in the market again. Big mistake. If you keep networking all the time, that next job search won’t take long at all.

One person I know who gets this very well is Chris Cooks. Follow him on Twitter. Build a relationship with him and learn what he does, how and why.

There are certainly more examples, but I hope this convinces you that not all networking is the same. Your goals affect not only where you network, but your message and your interaction.

Tags: Networking, Relationship building

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 9:20 am and is filed under Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.