Building The Best Network

If you want to succeed, build a great team. A great team multiplies your prospects for success; it enables you to form relationships with powerful people who can make your dreams come true. A great network supports your strengths, fills in your weaknesses and allows you to d build on your teammates' accomplishments. When you have a great team, people assume that you are great and will stand in line to get to know you, do business with you, and help you. They will also be delighted to pay your price.

Okay, so you understand the value of a strong network. Now, how do you get started in building a great network?

Well, unless you've been living in total seclusion, you already have a network in place. And your network is probably more extensive than you realize. It may not be a great network yet, but it's a beginning and a place from which to build. Your network most likely consists of your family, friends, schoolmates and business associates. It includes people with whom you've conducted business, socialized or otherwise interacted. In addition, the members of your network members' networks are also members of your network. Therefore, if your accountant is a member of your network, so are all the members of your accountant's network.

To build great networks, you need great people: great lawyers, doctors, dentists, accounts, insurance agents, friends, etc. If a disaster arose in the middle of the night, whom would you call? Can you count on him/her? Would he/she solve your problem? If a disaster arose in the middle of the night, who would call you? How could you help? Could they count on you?

If you want to build a great network, you must continually expand and upgrade your existing network. Everything always changes and what constitutes a great network today, could be less than great tomorrow. Network members drop out and lose interest: they change businesses, interests, and their lives and so will you. In networking, expanding and upgrading is a never-ending process: heads of states, CEOs, established leaders at every strata of society are constantly seeking to find the best people and incorporate them into their networks, add them to their teams. So the process of expanding and upgrading never stops; it's what building a network is about.

To expand and upgrade your network requires focus. Once you realize that you have a network, it's time sharpen your focus and begin to see with new eyes. Continually look for new and better network members and search for links that tie your network members with virtually everyone you meet and everything you experience. Search for opportunities for your network members and help them reach their goals.

Follow the example of the successful people in your life. Have you noticed how frequently they take new information and relate it to their particular area of expertise? Have you observed that writers tend to see everything as material for potential stories, financiers always look at the bottom line, publicists think about promotional possibilities, comics turn everything into humor, lawyers probe for hidden liabilities and medical workers zero in on health?

Well, successful networkers operate on the same principle. They're obsessed with connections and instinctively search for them. Accomplished networkers see the world in terms of leads, contacts, and opportunities that will bring them closer to network relationships. They view the world optimistically and see every possibility as an opening that could lead them to their pot of gold.

Examine how the successful people you know process new information. Then apply their methods to your situation.

In most cases, your contacts have been around for quite a while. However, you confined them to specific niches. To you they were friends, family, business associates, or service people, not potential network contacts. When you expand your awareness to see those around you also as members of your network, you can refine your networking focus.

Focus on networking. Practice honing your networking focus until it becomes a highly-developed skill. Begin by:

* Asking yourself if people you know, meet or hear about could help you network.

* Clarifying precisely how these people could help. For example, introduce you to the mayor, recommend you for the membership in the garden club or inform you where they found their antique Venetian carnival masks.

* Find out what places and events would be worth attending to expand your contacts.

* Question how you can make the best use of information to connect you with your targets.

Developing networking focus isn't difficult and before long, it will become second nature. Work to get it down pat because the ability to focus sharply is a priceless skill that will bring you rewards for the rest of your life.

Jill Lublin, author of the best selling book, Guerrilla Publicity, is a renowned public relations strategist and marketing expert. Jill is founder of GoodNews Media, Inc. a company specializing in positive news. She is currently the host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Do the Dream where she interviews celebrities who have achieved their dreams. Jill also has a TV pilot, The Good News, and an upcoming book, Networking Magic (Adams Media). Websites: www.promisingpromotion.com and www.jilllublin.com.

---

Financial Planners, Why Advertise When Free Publicity and Marketing Is Better?

Commit this to memory, please: To get in the media,... Read More

How To Write More Powerfully For PR, Offline And Online

Years ago when my Dad owned a group of local... Read More

PR Secrets for Small Business

Most small businesses do little to no public relations (PR)... Read More

When Tactics Are Not Enough

Your public relations people are busy. The buzz is all... Read More

Public Relations Primer Part III: 10 Donts

There are all kinds of smart moves professionals can make... Read More

Achieve Media Attention for Your Business

Do you want to be quoted by the national press... Read More

Ignore PR at Your Peril!

If you do, it means:you don't value tracking the perceptions... Read More

Financial Planners, Want Free Marketing and Publicity? The Key is Understanding the Media

The media need you. Need the information and expertise you... Read More

PR Where it Matters Most

What's more crucial to the success of a business, non-profit... Read More

Networking: 17 Essential Strategies In The 21st Century

It is virtually impossible to succeed professionally and personally without... Read More

Leveraging Your Reputation - Making PR Work for You

We rely on all kinds of tools and advice to... Read More

How To Write A Press Release: The 10 Commandments Of A Great Lead Paragraph

How to write a press release is a major challenge... Read More

How PR Helps Managers Win

Anything that lets managers achieve their managerial objectives is a... Read More

Guerrilla PR- Chapter One

THE NATURE OF MEDIAThirty years ago, Marshall McCluhan, the father... Read More

Publicity for Financial Planners--Eight Tips For Success

Individual financial planners can outscore bigger competitors and gain market... Read More

Dont Do This to Your News Release!

Hundreds of thousands of News Releases are sent out all... Read More

Can Small PR Firms Deliver Huge Results?

They can when they invest in the basics. The best... Read More

PR: Behavior Modification Specialist

While awaiting economic recovery, business needs to attract the attention... Read More

How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Media Coverage

Maybe it played for Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams,"... Read More

Passion with Purpose - The Winning Combination

The power of PassionPassion is an extraordinarily powerful spring. Without... Read More

Same Old, Same Old PR Still Tops

Like human nature over time, the power of good public... Read More

Publicity: Write a Letter to the Editor for Free Publicity

Ever wonder why papers devote a page or more to... Read More

How To Get Press To Come To You

Have you ever noticed how the same people's names always... Read More

Managers: A Key to Your Survival

Most business, non-profit and association managers live to tell about... Read More

Public Relations: The Fundamental Premise

It seems difficult to believe at the dawn of the... Read More

Be Patient? Nah, Lets Kill Something

There's the old joke about the two buzzards sitting in... Read More

Best Approach For Free Advertisement

Product/service publicity is the superhighway to business success everyone dreams.... Read More

How to Write Press Releases That Work And Get Free Publicity

One study found that as many as 90% of the... Read More

Public Relations

The wind of changes...The digital world has changed the form... Read More

Mind Your Own Business!

And the best way to mind your own business is... Read More

Add Some Firepower to your PR

Sure, as tactics usually presented to business, non-profit and association... Read More

PR: Whats the Point?

Here's the point: people act on their own perception of... Read More

Company Dress Codes for Small Business; Shorts and Pants

Most small businesses have logo'ed shirts, usually polo shirts with... Read More