BMA Marketing’s blog

A strong network doesn’t just happen. It takes time, effort, and patience. Here are seven tips for creating and maintaining a group of contacts:

Key #1: Build it before you need it
Building a network is a lifelong process, and relationships take time to develop. If you wait until you need help, it may be too late. The odds are you already have a network, but have not developed it to its full potential. Start with your family and friends. Move on to business contacts, members of your church, club members, etc.

This is your base network. If you have weaknesses, get to work. Call up the old friend from college. Email a buddy from your old job. Add business contacts to your Christmas card list. Attend industry events and talk to as many people as you can.

Key #2: You must make a deposit before you have the right to withdraw
Just because you have a name and number doesn’t mean a person is part of your network. You must first help them before you can ask a favor. View it like a bank account. Can you take out money if you never make deposits? I’ve known people who try to do this. After about two requests they are no longer welcome. Pretty soon they are on their own and have a reputation for being self serving.

Something as simple as saying thank you can be a major deposit in your network bank account. If someone gives you a hand, make sure they get credit. See an article in the paper they would like? Cut it out and send it to them, or put them in touch with a resource that can help them with a problem.

Key #3: Give more than you receive
This goes hand-in-hand hand with number two. Strive to maintain a positive (and growing) balance. Compare this with personal finance. You must always make more than you spend.

Key #4: Be open and genuine
People will spot it if you are phony. Relax and be yourself. Just make sure you keep away from volatile topics like religion and politics! To make the most of a network, you must sincerely like people and enjoy helping others when you are able. Say “yes” when you can, but also know when you have to say “no”.

Key #5: Follow up and stay in touch
Even the best contact will get old and stale. I like to view a relationship as two people tied together by delicate strands. Each time you make contact adds another strand. If you stay with your initial meeting the connection is tenuous. It is only when you have hundreds of these strands woven together that you have an unbreakable cable.

Key #6: The devil is in the details
Even the experts have trouble remembering all the details. Write things down. If you get a business card, take notes on the back after you finish your conversation. Use that pad of paper at the meeting. What is their spouse’s name? Do they have kids? What ages and genders? What college did she attend? What is his birthday?

Key #7: Your network doesn’t end with your contact
Each of your contacts has their own network. Don’t be afraid to call and ask “do you know someone who can help?” If you are doing the steps above, they will be glad to make the introduction.

In his book, The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm, Kenneth W. Gronbach tells a story about stopping at the top of his driveway to retrieve the mail, getting back in the car and hearing his two daughters—aged 13 and 16—excitedly ask what came for them. Both, it turned out, received direct-mail offers from their favorite clothing retailer, and they immediately asked if he would take them shopping. "This is not a real question," he writes, "because they know I'm trapped. How else will we save all the money reflected in the coupons?"

Even though kids live in a digital-online-wireless world of iPods, laptops, mobile phones, text messages and downloadable media, his daughters' enthusiasm for the low-tech approach of direct mail is not unusual. According to Gronbach, Generation Y customers—who will number 100 million by 2010—watch little broadcast television, don't read newspapers and rarely listen to broadcast radio. It's a good thing for marketers, therefore, that they respond so well to this tried-and-true channel.

"Put some compelling coupons in a snail-mail offer and watch what happens," he says.

It might not have the glamour of avant-garde marketing, but here's your Marketing Inspiration: "Generation Y loves direct snail mail," writes Gronbach. "I know this seems strange in the cyberage, but if you need to brand Gen Y and you are not using the U.S. Post Office, you are making a big mistake."