Every major opportunity that has happened to me in my life has come through networking. In the world we live in, effective networking can fast track your career or business - or your failure to do it well, or at all, can leave you struggling on the sidelines. I’ve gained friends, contacts, business, profits and profile through it.  As a coach, motivational speaker and author, it is essential for my business. It is something that is so dear to my heart that I now teach people how to flourish through it at my monthly Networking for Success event here at the British Library Business & IP Centre.  

 

Here are 10 reasons why you should get networking and how you can benefit:

1. Connections – gain great contacts across all fields that can benefit both you and your customers
2. Relationships – build new friendships, partnerships and possibilities
3. Elevation – gain business, clients, sales, contracts, visibility and other business opportunities
4. Inspiration – events often have great speakers who can motivate and inspire you
5. Community – meet others to share and for support – to stop you getting stuck
6. Introductions – meet and network with people you might never otherwise have an opportunity to interact with
7. Direction – it can often help guide, direct progress in life, career and business – especially during times of change
8. Information – many events provide essential advice, and many attendees have relevant experience of advice which they can share with you
9. Education – many events can boost your knowledge and skills
10. Celebration – events can help you unwind, have fun and celebrate.

There are many myths around networking and sometimes people pick up bad habits giving it a bit of a bad reputation. But networking – relationship building for mutual benefit – makes our personal, working and business world go around. Great networking happens when you’re strategic, authentic and where you allow chance and serendipity to kick in. 

It’s shrewd to network in a range of places: conferences, seminars, exhibitions, socially or in the workplace. Even casually catching up with friends and family is networking. There is a skill and an art to it – but the key to it is being yourself, never being selfish and always looking for mutual benefit. 

 

Join Rasheed at Networking for Success and learn how to network strategically, skillfully, naturally and free of nerves. It will help you to explore how and where to network and how to leverage, build and use your existing network so that everyone wins. Book now for the November event here.

By Rasheed Ogunlaru, Coach – Speaker – Author 

British Library Business & IP Centre Partner