3 Tips For Building Better Business Networks

And…

5 reasons why you should

Balance Advisory are experts at forging profitable business connections that ensure clients receive specialist infrastructure solutions to support their projects and operations.

This article delves into why it’s so important to put networking at the forefront of your business goals with a few added tips and tricks for stepping up your networking game.

The people you are connected to can make all the difference when it comes to forging the pathways to success in business.

In the infrastructure space especially, it often comes down to who you know, not what you know (whilst still very important), when tricky negotiations are in play.

Although it’s a hard pill to swallow, particularly if you’re new to an industry, everyday evidence of this thesis (it’s not what you know it’s who you know) is obvious in just about every echelon of business across the globe.

But don’t despair.

If forging networks hasn’t been your strong suit just yet, Balance Advisory has a few tips and tricks to share with you – let’s just say we’re pretty good at making friends and forming mutually-beneficial relationships with them.

We’d love to offer you our Top 3 Tips to building better business networks and then, we’ll include the 5 Top Reasons why you really should be taking the time to reach your networking goals.

So how do you go about forging stronger connections in business?

Attend Events

There’s a misplaced belief that business events are a great opportunity to drink wine, each cheese and not much else. While you often do get to drink wine and eat cheese, doing so while you are meeting associates from your industry in a casual setting is invaluable. Being able to connect with members of your business community without the everyday stresses of work can really pay off. Chances are, if you’re able to have a more casual conversation, the other party will be more likely to remember you in the future (you might find you have something in common too!). When you email them about something business related six months down the track chances are, they’ll remember that chat too, and they’ll likely be far more inclined to assist you to find what you’re looking for after having already made that personal connection with you.

Cold Call

Sounds scary, right? Once you rip the band aid off, this one isn’t as bad as it sounds. If there is someone in your industry you’ve been hoping to get to know better, for whatever reason, give them a call and invite them for a cup of coffee. If you’re having trouble breaking the ice with this one, consider if you two might have a mutual associate who can help bridge the gap here. Either way, give it a shot. The worst that can happen is they’ll say no.

Know Your Worth

If there are things others in your industry can do for you to help you along the way, there are no doubt strengths you have that others could also benefit from. When considering the two tips above, at all costs, keep your own worth in mind. What is it that you do best that others can learn from? What existent connections or knowledge do you have that you could share? Consider what your “networking pitch” will be when you are attempting to forge these new relationships. This is a wrap up of your business pitch and your goals. Have this ready when you attend events or before you cold call possible new contacts. The main thing to remember is to be as helpful as possible. When your network gets stronger, make sure you extend the opportunity to join it to others who might benefit from the connection, also. The more helpful you are to others, the more chance you have of forging relationships that will help you in the future.

While going out of our comfort zone to forge new connections in your industry or business community might feel overwhelming, there are 5 Top Reasons why it is worth doing.

These are:
(Click to expand)

1. To define what you offer

Oftentimes, the clarity of what we do best is not evident until we compare it to what someone else is offering, or not offering. Meeting new contacts in your industry will assist you to recognise, as a professional, what it is you do well, or even which areas you might be lacking.

Learning from others can assist you to really define your offering.

If you know what it is others in your industry are putting their focus on, you might even be able to recognise niche opportunities you’ve never considered before.

Use the information you collate when forging connections to strengthen your business offerings.

2. To increase confidence

Walking into a room at a particularly tense negotiation or meeting can seem a whole lot less daunting if you know some familiar faces in the room. Although we all have to act with the best interests of our own business at the forefront in professional situations, you’ll have more confidence as an operator when you have a better working knowledge of who is who in your industry and business community.

3. To save money

Who knows where one of your networks will come in handy? They might know how to get a better deal on plant and equipment, or who is offering something cheaper for a certain period. As your network grows, your capacity to save money and unlock cost cuts you may otherwise not have been privy to, grows also.

4. To learn from the mistakes of others

Do as I say, not as I do.

This is a huge one, and one of the main benefits of having a strong business network. Our ability to learn from the mistakes of others can save us money, time and a lot of future stress.

If you’ve made new contacts who have pioneered in an area you might just be moving into, you can learn so much from their experiences, successes and failures.

5. To recognise and grasp opportunities

Saving time, money or resources are just some benefits of having strong business and industry connections. Getting to know others in your core business community can also ensure you hear about new opportunities sooner. Perhaps one of your contacts heard of a potential opportunity that they recognised might be exciting for you – and let you in on the information earlier than you otherwise might have found out. This could have given you more time to work on your proposal and potentially even an ice breaker for your application.

At Balance Advisory we are specialists in independently evaluating opportunities through our focused and client-specific approach.

We can assist you with Step 1-4, but our assistance is often truly important in Step 5 – when it comes down to the crunch and you are faced with the decision of – will this project work, or not?

If you have made it through this Step-by-Step plan you should have the highest confidence possible that this project will work, or if not, why exactly you need to get back to the drawing board.

Balance Advisory delivers unique intelligence for those who own, develop, operate, regulate or manage infrastructure projects.

If you’re at the stage of attempting to determining the viability of an infrastructure project, we can help.

We’d love to connect with you today.