It’s that time of year again.

The time when, amid the frenzy of clearing your desk before the long break, going to parties, attending school speech nights and buying Christmas presents, you might be reflecting on what you did during the past year and what you can do differently in the next.

If you are, you’re in good company. During the Christmas and New Year season, many of us discover an itch to change something in our lives.

Sometimes, that ‘something’ is easy to identify and turns into a specific goal such as finding a new job, buying a new house or travelling overseas.

Very often, however, it’s the feeling, possibly a little vague and hard to define, that you want to make your life better somehow, find a new challenge or contribute something to the world.

If that sounds like you and you don’t know where to begin, here is an idea.

Go out and get involved in your local community.

Wherever you live, there are organisations near you that need your enthusiasm and energy.

We’re talking about the service clubs and other groups that are widespread in our suburbs and towns. The ones that raise money with sausage sizzles, quiz nights and raffles. The ones that hold their weekly or monthly meetings in golf clubs, hotel restaurants and community halls.

They have an abundance of ideas, aspirations and commitment.

What they lack are the arms and legs to make things happen. Many are desperate for more men and women, young or old, to sign up.

It’s likely that a short drive from your home or office, a service club is helping teenagers develop vocational skills, providing driver training courses, running outdoor education camps, protecting the environment or supporting a school in a developing nation.

There are volunteer groups who care for local parks, creeks and lakes. Others who help with a range of activities in libraries, community centres and schools.

Those are just some examples of the types of organisations you can choose from.

All of them do valuable work that makes our society richer.

Please, seek them out. They are easy to find if you ask around, search the web or make enquiries through your local council.

Don’t do it because it will look good on your LinkedIn profile or CV. Do it because it’s worthwhile and because of that itch to change something in your life.

Ultimately we are all connected. A stronger community helps everyone. The more of us who get involved, the better our world will be.

Do you have an elevator pitch?

You know, that brief, well-rehearsed speech that’s designed to get the listener interested in your product, service or business idea.

It’s called an elevator pitch because it should be short enough to deliver during an elevator ride. The theory is that if your pitch is successful, you’ll have the other person hooked and eager to know more before the door opens at their floor.

Because your elevator pitch can help you win new business, it’s worth putting time and effort into preparing one that’s ready to use at the right time.

The question, though, is when is the right time? Just because you have a great elevator pitch doesn’t mean you should roll it out at every opportunity.

For example, imagine you’re at one of your business association’s regular monthly events and someone you know has just introduced you to the person standing next to her.

After shaking your hand, checking your name badge and saying hello, this person looks you in the eye and asks, “What do you do?”.

It’s a conversation-starting question that probably everyone has used in that kind of situation.

Is that the right moment to recite your elevator pitch? Or is better to give a ‘plain vanilla’ response and say, very simply and without embellishment, what your profession or occupation is?

The answer lies in the context.

The elevator pitch is a sales technique. It’s a verbal door-opener that helps you get one step further to closing a deal.

When someone you’re introduced to at a business networking event asks what you do, they are just trying to get a conversation going. Nothing more, nothing less. Launching straight into your carefully crafted elevator pitch is probably not going to achieve much.

There is, however, one likely exception. That’s when you’ve previously identified this person as a prospect. Perhaps you’ve also anticipated their attendance at the event and set up the introduction.

It comes down to the difference between networking and selling.

Giving an elevator pitch is a sales activity. On the other hand, networking is about building relationships and does not mean selling yourself to strangers.

So be careful with your elevator pitch. Have one ready to use at the right time, knowing that’s unlikely to be when someone you’ve just met and know nothing about asks what you do.

Three business networking myths busted

Are you someone who thinks business networking isn’t for you? If so, you’re not alone. That’s because one of the most effective ways to build business and get referrals is also one of the most misunderstood.

If you’re one of those business networking sceptics, perhaps we can give you a fresh perspective by debunking three commonly accepted myths.

Myth 1 – Networking is all about attending events

If all you ever do is turn up at networking events, you’re robbing yourself of opportunities to develop  the connections that are essential for successful business networking.

The most valuable networking activities don’t occur at those events your business association or networking group organises. They happen between events when you invest your time in building stronger relationships.

For example, once you know someone, you might

• Catch up with them and get to know them better. One well-proven way to start is with the simple question, “May I buy you a coffee and learn more about your business?”.

• Think about whether you can help them. For example, you might be able to introduce them to a potential client, or a supplier of a service that will solve a business problem they’ve mentioned. Remember, what goes around, comes around.

The takeaway – Although networking events are important, they are only one part of the process. What really matter are the conversations and interactions you have at other times.

Myth 2 – Networking is about constantly meeting new people

Of course, networking involves making new connections. But that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to go around like a hunter, always collecting more names to add to your contact database.

You also need to put your energies into strengthening the connections you already have. A person who knows and trust you is more likely give you business or refer clients to you. It can take weeks, months or years to build that level of trust. There are no shortcuts.

The takeaway – business networking is about cultivating relationships. It needs the mindset of a farmer, not a hunter.

Myth 3 – Networking means selling yourself to strangers

Yes, your networking efforts will eventually create opportunities to pitch yourself, your products or your services. But that’s not networking, it’s selling. It’s important to understand the difference.

When you first meet someone, aim to spend more time asking them questions about their business, products, services or industry sector than telling them about yours.

The takeaway – successful networkers focus more on learning about others than talking about themselves.

What is Business Networking?

Networking has been part of business life for thousands of years. For example, history tells us that commerce and trade in ancient Greece and Rome relied heavily on personal networks.

Fast forward to today and, done properly, networking can be an extremely cost-effective way to get referrals and boost your bottom line.

If you belong to a business association where you build a solid network of people who know and trust you, the revenue you generate over the years should make the annual membership fee and the price of event tickets look trivial.

Unfortunately, the sad reality is that networking is often done badly. Here are couple of typical scenarios you may be familiar with.

• The one-sided conversation with a stranger. You’re at a business event and someone introduces themselves, hands you their card and starts spruiking their services. Eventually, after showing no sign of being interested in you, they disengage and move on to their next target.
• The production line referral system. You join a networking organisation in which members are under pressure to generate a continual stream of referrals for each other, week after week. Usually, the referrals you get are poorly-qualified ‘opportunities’ that turn out to be useless and waste your time.
  In the first example, that stranger isn’t networking. They are giving you a sales pitch.

In the second, because people are obliged to give referrals, the focus is quantity rather than quality. Handing out names and phone numbers at a meeting isn’t networking.

So, let’s look at three principles that define what networking is really all about.

Networking is a long-term strategy

When you find yourself staring into a cashflow hole because the economy has turned down or a major client has left you, deciding to ‘do some networking’ probably isn’t going to save you.

Or to put it another way – if you want to get results from networking during this quarter, you really should have started months or years ago.

Networking means relationships and mutual trust

There’s a difference between networking and adding people to your contact list.

The heart of networking consists of professional relationships that you’ve nurtured, over time, with people you trust and who trust you in return. When you have a genuine business network, you have something far more valuable than just a collection of names, phone numbers and email addresses.

Networking is purposeful

There should be nothing hit-and-miss about your business networking. You should aim to build a network that connects you with your target market. In other words, put some direction into it.

One way to do this is to join a business association or industry group whose members are either potential clients or people who are likely to know potential clients.

To sum up, networking is a way to find referrals and win new business that works in the long term, depends on relationships and mutual trust and is purposeful.

Those principles are the foundation for everything else accomplished networkers do, including developing some specific skills and habits. We’ll talk about those in future posts.