Networking and its importance

Networking is among the best uses of time for any entrepreneur or manager. The returns are not just monetary. Most of the time, networking is free and provides you with the opportunity to interact with like-minded individuals. When you attend the right event, they are full of people who you can work with or learn from.

Obviously you will strike out from time to time at a few events which have people who just end up playing the role of salesmen. However as people realize the futility of that strategy and the dormant potential in developing real relationships, those numbers will start to dwindle. Events such as these provide an opportunity for an informal chat where each person has no hidden agenda and is therefore more genuine than if you met them in a corporate scenario. This could lead to an opportunity where you could work together sometime in the future.

As a marketing strategy, what better way is there to create a lasting impression than having a face-to-face meet and establish that personal connection? At the end of the day it all boils down to who knows you and not who you know.

Future collaborations in terms of help, advice and new interesting ideas that you could incorporate into your own business can be gained or you could simply expand your industry. If a representative from Mirror and Smoke were to attend such an event, it would be in our interest to pursue leads in fields such as production, film making, documentaries, cameras, corporate films, etc.

After the event, it is essential to stay connected to everyone you meet even if they don’t seem like an immediate collaborator, you can never pinpoint the direction of your growth or how someone could help you out. Stay in touch and talk about the ideas you exchanged while they are still fresh in the mind.

If you feel you’re too busy to attend such events, you must remember that they can count as being at work because you are inevitably spreading your business name to an audience which can benefit from and add value to your business – and you stand to gain ideas.

As of today there are plenty of start-up communities around the world and as economic uncertainties abound, these communities help each other grow and they grow together when the challenge of doing it along might be a mountain too high to climb. With an adept workforce and an in house studio with state of the art infrastructure, we strive to race against ourselves; thereby raising the standard of excellence with every endeavour. When meeting with individuals from a fellow production house or media agency for corporate films, we believe in learning from them and picking up any hints about films, scripts, marketing objectives that we have yet to explore. Individual short film makers often have very interesting ideas which haven’t yet been implemented and the only way to learn from them is to actually go out and meet them out in the real world.

Networking isn’t just external; there is an internal component to it as well. You need to be visible at your current job. Don’t just hide in your office or cubicle. If an opportunity presents itself, volunteer and make yourself available. Expand your group of lunch partners. Meet with new co-workers and continue to communicate with them regularly. Be in the loop about where your company is headed. You may also want to brush up your skills and broaden the scope of your knowledge for the purpose of external networking. It also helps to keep Marketing Objectives in mind when you network, this will help you meet the right kind of people and pursue the correct leads.

The easiest way to network externally would be to join a professional organization which caters to your field. Attend meetings regularly, meet new people and benefit from the knowledge and information which you now have access to. For most people networking is not easy and can often be quite painful.

To ease your apprehensions, you might consider arriving early for a meeting as there will be fewer people or you could invite a colleague or friend so you have sense of familiarity. The next step would be to try and become a board member or a member of the chairing committee. This not only looks good on your resume but also opens new doors as you now interact with even more people outside of your group.

Start and maintain a database of all contacts in your network which includes information such as their name, email address, maybe a photo or something to remember them by, phone number along with how, when and where you met them with any other pertinent notes to help jog your memory as well as your contacts. Keep adding to this database and keep in touch with any relevant news or possibly pass along an article or a contract they might be interested in. At Mirror and Smoke, by cooking new recipes for success every time, we nurture a winning relationship with our clients and become an integrated part of their growth and thereby our own growth therefore making the process mutually beneficial.

The key is to build relationships and keep them strong. It’s always easier to work together than running it alone.