Network for Growth

The New Way of Marketing

Networking – The “new” way of marketing

There are many ways to get your product or service to the market place but for many business-to-business companies some of the traditional ways are stifled by over use and abuse.

Direct mail and telephone cold calling are excellent if accurately targeted to exactly the right person.  E-mail seemed to be a wonderful and cheap way to get straight to the person who could use your product or service.  The result is that individuals and companies are piled up with junk mail, bombarded by phone calls from telemarketing calls from India and find e-mails clogged with “Spam”.  Frustrated by this attack, companies have raised barriers to halt or slow the flow – this makes it difficult to target new markets.  The “old ways” often become the “new ways” and today “word of mouth”, recommendations and referrals are flourishing.

Networking is the modern word for meeting new contacts and using them to help you to promote your business whilst helping them to promote theirs.

Think about your business, how much comes from recommendations and word of mouth?  How much time and money do you put into this channel?  Do you spend more on advertising, direct mail, telephone calls, leaflet drops, giveaways etc, etc than meeting people face to face?  The answer to all these questions is that a successful business will use all routes to market and exploit the most successful “long term route” by networking.

However, this route does involve “work”. You can’t just write out a cheque and pay a marketing company to do it!  Every time you meet a new businessperson whether a new supplier, a new customer or just someone you meet, they are all potential carriers for your message. If you were looking for a new dentist would you look in yellow pages or ask someone for a recommendation?

Think forward

If you asked three people to tell another three people about your business and they told another three and so on, provided they all did what you asked, it would take only 14 steps to get to more than the working population of the UK!  Get your calculator out and 15 steps to 43,046.721, wow, how powerful is that?

More than the people you meet

You may think that if you meet someone who doesn’t or cannot buy from you then it was a waste of time, change this to “think forward” and meet people who can spread the word and become your sales force.  With an open mind you may also meet someone who could supply you with something to enhance your product, meet someone who sells into the same market to swop information or even form a consortium, meet someone who has solved whatever problems you have in your business and you might even find those new customers!

Meet the right people

There are many networking opportunities for you and your business, Network for Growth offers a unique platform where both Industrial and Commercial businesses can meet separately (and sometimes jointly) to build their contacts, find new people to help build their business and meet people who they can rely on for help.

Network For Growth is not like any other networking organisation that you may have experienced!  For a start they guarantee that if, after 12 months of membership you have not made any contacts that are fruitful to your business they will give you your money back!

Some people are reluctant to attend networking meetings because they either believe they do not work, or they find it personally difficult to break in to what they believe is an established club.  Network for Growth ensures all members get a chance to develop their businesses (even shy ones!) by the variety of formats for the meetings and events.