Is it important for a business to use their networking skills to improve their business performance?

Networking is the norm for all types of businesses, the need for networking is achieved at many different levels and in many different ways. The scale can range from a huge multimillion dollar company like Facebook which has huge networking capabilities down to a fete at your local school, which needs a small network of people to provide for and promote the fete.

The question that business owners need to be ask themselves is, “at what level of the networking scale will satisfy my business needs to achieve a successful outcome for my business?”

The general impression I believe by most people is that the more popular you or your business is the more success you will have. Hence therefore the need to create some kind of network to get the message out there to achieve a successful business. In the business world before the internet a combination of TV Radio and Newspapers were considered efficient ways to get your message across. Most people felt comfortable with this because all they had to do was to get in touch with their local media outlet to promote themselves. This is still the case and is convenient for a lot of smaller business owners, but this type of networking is generally restricted to your local area and in someways can be very expensive for a small business owner. If you want to remain competitive in business you need to embrace modern technology the power of the internet and all the social networking attachments that come with it, where you can promote your business both locally or to a larger audience.

Because the world is a big place, we need to make it smaller through our abilities of socialising and interacting with each other using the power of the internet to achieve the ultimate goal which is recognition, for who you are and what you are trying to achieve eg promoting your business, selling products, promoting your web site, this is important. There is also a level of trust that is also needed, this is not always achieved on the first encounter with your customer but slowly developed based on the persons actions or the reputation that the business has achieved over time. When this combination is successfully achieved then your chances of a sale in whatever form is greatly increased.

Look at Google, at Amazon, Facebook etc… these businesses started from an idea and now have worldwide recognition. They have developed their networking skills and are very influential businesses. Whether you like them or not they have established themselves and are here to stay for a long time to come.

One of the benefits of networking is that it helps you the business owner to discover and express yourself, share ideas with others and strengthen your own personal beliefs and ideas, because the more you socialise and interact with other people the more you can fine tune your business ideas.

At the end of the day I believe that networking your business is vital and depends on you the business owner, and your goals and what you want to achieve with your business. If you operate an internet business then obviously networking will be a big part of your business, but if you own a small offline local business then the traffic that is generated by your shop front and local promotions could be enough for you to survive the ever changing business world.