GROWING your network as a leader or business owner is crucial for building influence, gaining opportunities and scaling business.
Your network will help you build trust and mutual value in your sphere of influence.
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If you aim to be a stand out entrepreneur, you must join a group of industry or market experts who provide in-depth information and analysis of the market and business trends.
Additionally, listen to Podcasts where industry experts share vital information on how to strategically plan and navigate challenges in the business sphere.
Public speaking
One of the ways of growing your network as a manager at your company is by attending public speaking meetings through expert communicator organisations such as toastmasters.
By attending such meetings, you could reap a lot of benefits by leveraging feedback from other leaders from all facets of the business world.
- How to grow your network, value of networking
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Some of the benefits are that you could benchmark with industry experts and learn from them as they would also learn from you.
Public speaking has helped many business managers and leaders improve their communication skills and build their confidence.
Most business leaders are gripped with fear when they are called to share their insights and knowledge on a particular topic.
However, such meetings or engagements help in overcoming fear of speaking in front crowds.
Public speaking helps with horning active listening skills, that also effectively drives thought provoking conversations.
Public speaking also helps with crafting audience specific messages.
For example, when one has an engagement to speak to teenagers they would tailor-make a message that will suit the targeted audience.
Social media presence
We now live and function in a digital world.
Companies whether small or big must embrace social media platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Tiktok.
Most of the people who could be your potential customers spend time on social media.
Social media is a very strong strategic place to post business insights, trends and engage with other business leaders.
It is important to maintain a strong online presence and offer new information to your clients and engage in meaningful conversations with them.
Additionally, a company could make use of digital platforms such as podcasts to communicate company news to its stakeholders.
Interviews, discussions could be done on podcasts with the sole purpose of informing and educating stakeholders about the services and products that the company offers.
Strategic partnerships
By joining a partnership with strategic industry players, your business could access new markets that are inaccessible due to certain industry barriers.
There will be less chances of failure when you partner with an already established business.
Strategic partnerships allow companies to share human capital, financial resources and material resources.
This helps in cutting costs and improving efficiency and effectiveness.
Partnerships are good in the sense that you could venture into an existing market where your partner is already established.
This means you could access already established networks, workforces with detailed information about the market, infrastructure.
Engage with advisors and investors
Business advisers provide strategic guidance and expertise to effectively manage the business.
They are also helpful in assisting management in coming with long-term plans.
Due to their in-depth industry knowledge, they help management to make informed decisions which could help the organisation to avoid costly decisions.
They could also guide the business on how to strategically navigate challenges.
They also provide information on market trends and help the managers to effectively plan and budget resources.
Since they have a wealth of knowledge about the market, they help in identifying potential risks and how those risks could be mitigated.
Business advisers play a pivotal role in improving operations of the business as they help in streamlining operations to make it compete effectively in the market.
Internal network development
It is important to build a sense of togetherness in an organisation.
This could be achieved by building or cultivating a culture of psychological safety.
A worker with a sense of belonging to a team will give the organisation the best version of themselves.
This type of employee will become the biggest brand advocate for the organisation.
Encourage employee networking
When employees share expertise with peers other companies and industries they are kept informed about the business landscape, and hence, take those nuggets back to their respectively organisations and become change agents.
It is important for employees to attend conferences, seminars as part of their development to growing their leadership and network at the same time.
- Innocent Hadebe is a United States based certified John Maxwell Leadership business coach and mentor. His organisation, Innocent Leadership Group, capacitates upcoming entrepreneurs with the requisite skills to run their businesses.
