Networking from the home or office

Over the next couple of weeks, we will have a new addition to our home – a new baby boy. This is great news for the family, but it is going to curtail some of my networking activities for a little while. So I have been looking for ways I can connect with others when I have free time after the baby is born. I am starting to leverage those techniques now as opposed to waiting, and they are beginning to work. I am expanding my network locally and in other regions of the U.S. where we already have a bit of B2B Power Exchange presence.

You have to do more than sign up for social networks

I am listed on several social online communities including LinkedIn, FaceBook, Plaxo, FastPitch, Xing, B2BPowerExchange.net, and probably others. Like most people, I have signed up and accepted invites to many of these networks, but that was usually the last act – until recently.

I was watching a recent presentation on FaceBook, and the presenter, who had only been on the system for a couple of months, was talking about how she had connected with about 1 bizillion people in 60 days and everyone else could do it, too. All you had to do was create some small talk and reach out to everyone by writing on their wall and saying something nice about their picture or something else equally superficial, then ask them to connect. Before you knew it, you could have 12,000 friends. Woohoo!!!

I am a big believer in relevance. Her core concept was right, but her execution is wrong. I am using her basic strategy, which is to find places where people with similar business interests are willing to connect, then asking them to connect based on their profiles and the potential fit as a partner for one of my businesses or for those in my networks.

Generally, the approach is working. More than a third of the people are accepting my connection requests.

The connection isn’t the last act

Since I don’t know the people I am connecting with through these networks, I am also sending them requests to connect by phone, online meeting and in-person if it makes sense. My desire isn’t to build 10s of thousands of “friendships” but to create 100s of fruitful business relationships would be a good thing. So I am working on building solid connections, instead of volumes of them. The volume comes naturally with genuine interest and mutually beneficial objectives.

How are you networking when you can’t physically be everywhere at once?