Networking

There’s a very good reason why referral networking is becoming an accepted and important marketing strategy in businesses worldwide: it works. Imagine being dropped off in a foreign city with nothing but a few hundred dollars and told that the only way to get home was to start a business and make a lot of money—in six days. Well, you don’t have to imagine it. Just watch the BBC television show The Last Millionaire.

I remember my first box of business cards.  I spent countless hours poring over the design and layout, considering each kerning of the font.  I wondered whether I would lose credibility with a potential client because my address was left justified instead of center or right justified.  I boggled whether to include my cell phone number. Of course, having just started my very own business, I couldn’t afford a graphic designer to work with me and quell my fears over the whole process.

Ivan Misner the master of Business Networking shares how he took an idea and built it into the worlds largest referral organisation .

As your connections grow across multiple online platforms (and I recommend you join as many as you have time for) you become more connected. More connected with people, more connected with content, more connected with the flow of what's happening throughout the world. Your connections inform you, guide you, lead you, teach you. They act like a torch in the dark. You can see this happening in the blogs on Ecademy and the conversation threads on Friendfeed, the feed on Facebook and the flow on Twitter.