One of the first things we teach our scholars is the right use of “Networking”, as well as the best methods to use their resources when they’re networking. Over the last fifteen years, I have observed folk spend many hours networking.

As an interesting point I was one of those folks.

It is precisely how I got the moniker, “Queen of Networking”. One day, my coach asked me to start to trace all my time. Time that I spent networking, time I spent responding to the telephone, emails, working on projects, surfing the net, and so on. This looks like an eye opening experience. I revealed that almost all of the stuff I was doing wasn’t having a positive result on my business bottom line. 60% of all of my activities in a given week were around networking.

Going to the events, following up with each single card that I picked up, staying in contact through e-mail and telephone calls, screening and fielding emails and calls from folks who met me while networking, enrolling for other events, driving to events, preparing for the events, checking and updating my social networking sites and so forth and such like. You get the picture ; I used to be a real busy woman. Busy doesn’t equal rewarding. After we had a clear understanding about where my time was going, it was now time to take a look at what quantity of that time was basically having a positive effect on my companies bottom line. What became painfully clear is while 60% of my time was spent, adding folk to my database, and networking, eighty percent of my revenue was coming from 10-12 folk, 228 where folks whom I knew, supported and referred while the other three thousand names and contacts in my database were just that, names and unfulfilled relations.

The most significant feedback that my coach gave me was simply this statement ; “Imagine what your business would look like if you spent 60% of your time nurturing the 10-12 people who are helping to grow your business.” It was a statement that would keep me up at night. Today you won’t find me at each event and when I attend a networking event, I do so really strategically. I’ve a goal under consideration, a purpose to be satisfied and connections to make for no less than one of those twelve people who were helping me to build my business. When I network for others, my own business grows with little effort on my part.

I have the chance to see Givers Gain in action. Before you go to your next networking event, ask these questions :

* Where is most of my business coming from?

* Which affiliations are manufacturing results for my business?

* Who passes me the most business?

* What are my goals for the event?

* Who do I really need to help?

* How can my networking activities help my referral sources?

* What activities have I invested in my existing network?

* What’s my networking budget in both time and money? Bottom line is this, what impact is all of that networking having on your bottom line?