THe Art of Networking in a Down Economy

It’s a Down Economy. WHOOOOO HOOOOOO! Opportunity can only be found in an up or a down economy. Already your competition has called it quits- “When the economy is this bad there is no reason to network. Bla bla bla ” They couldn’t be more wrong. Now is the best time to network. Let’s face it– we are all scared. We are all looking over our shoulder to see if we have a job next month . We are checking our bank accounts to see how long we can survive without a job. We are not sticking our heads out for anyone or anything. Sounds bleak? In business, we call these “pain points”, and the beauty of it if everyone is looking for help to solve these pains. We are narrowing down the number of people with whom we network to those people who can be counted on in a down economy, and they don’t have the luxury of making any mistakes. So be the “one” that they can turn to and count on. So here are the top three things to do for the next 12 months. BE POSTIVE. It’s all about attitude. When the economy is down, it’s easy to be positive because everyone is so negative. One small positive comment looks ten times more positive than it did six months ago. Go out and network and talk about what is working well for your company. Professionals want to surround themselves with people who can see through the adversity and look for opportunities. We have truckloads of lemons out there start making lemonade. When someone ask you how badly you have been affected by the economy reply: “well you know just the other day (fill in the blank with something positive). At a car dealership, they told me that car sales were down, but car repairs are up. At a restaurant, they told me they are getting a lot more college age clients during the holidays. At a Plant Nursery, they are selling holiday decorations. FOLLOW THROUGH.20Professionals are dropping useless people off there list- especially, useless vendors! The easiest way to judge the value of people is whether they follow through with promises. You need to make a promise and follow through with it. A promise has two key components – the delivery and the time limit. You need to promise the delivery of some item or information and you have to put a time limit as to when the delivery will be competed. “I’ll get you have paperwork by Tuesday at four o’clock.” “I’ll talk with Tom this Friday, I’ll send you an e-mail over the weekend, and I will call you 10:00 on Monday.” Business people have more problems now than they did six months ago. And their current networking partners/vendors are under the microscope. Professionals are open to fixing every problem in their life right now. Anyone who can help take a load off their shoulders is a “valued person”. The value of a relationship is being screened by the success of follow through. Do not miss any scheduled meetings or appointments. Do not miss any scheduled meetings or appointments. Yes, I said it twice. Apathy and excuses will kill your business in a down economy. If you belong to any networking groups, non-profit boards, etc. You need to be there as planned. DO A GOOD DEED. I go to a Pow Wow in my town every year, and a friend of mine is one of the vendors. One morning no one was buying anything and she remembered that she forgot=2 0to appease the spirits by doing a GOOD DEED that morning. She gave a small girl a necklace for free. Suddenly she had a bunch of people come over to buy from her booth. Every religion has a name for it. Call it what you will- it works. In a down economy it works even better. Every day, do something nice. At every networking event, do something nice. Good Deeds reflect the fact that you are someone who will make an extra effort. Yesterday, my co-worker was having a problem with a sales pitch. I dropped what I was doing and we worked on his sales pitch for an hour. My neighbor called me at work and asked if he could pick up my children from daycare so I didn’t have to hurry across traffic in the freezing rain. My friend picked me up a book on Service Oriented Architecture for Dummies because one of my major clients specializes in SOA. The key to GOOD DEEDs is that we all think about them, in a down economy, you have to take action and do them. So chin up, the opportunities are out there. There is a whole world of pain and suffering just waiting for you to step up and help. Go out and network. Listen to their pain. Create opportunities. Be positive. Follow though. Do a good deed.