Herewith Jacques Basson’s latest edition of his weekly web journal:
During my recent interview with Ryk van Niekerk, Editor of Moneyweb, on his business programme Doen jou eie ding (listen to my interview at https://klipkouers.com/moneyweb) I emphasised, amongst others, the importance of effective networking.
To network doesn’t mean you need to take 3 000 business cards to a breakfast function and start handing it out like a grandpa handing out sweets to his grandchildren. This type of approach is precisely one of the reasons why a lot of people don’t like to network and why it doesn’t work at all. Networking firstly entails to build relationships… fiduciary relationships to be precise.
Let me share with you an extremely good and recent master display of how one goes to work to grow your business. I had the privilege to make a new friend and got to know him better. His name is Niel Stander. Niel and his young family recently arrived in England where he is busy with a doctorate degree in organisational change. The name of his practice is Sensibus Consulting. The cherry on the cake is that the business university where he is doing his doctorate and where they lived for the first couple of weeks (photo above), is only eight minutes from my home and one of my favourite places.
Niel then decided to support a charity which entails purchasing breakfast with a high calibre entrepreneur. At R3 000 it wasn’t a cheap breakfast, but rather an estimated risk and at least a donation for a good purpose.
The end result: The entrepreneur (a lady) owns a massive food and beverage business and she and Niel clicked! Not only did the breakfast end with the lady wanting to make use of Niel’s services, she gave him another five high profile names and their personal email addresses with the instruction to use her name. Niel signed up four of the five as new clients. Master move!
Hopefully it gives you a few fresh ideas to network that will ultimately lead to new business.
Let the wheels roll!
Jacques
