It’s all about the network, baby

• Apr 6, 2008 Posted by Layla Masri

  Have you stopped and thought about your network of business friends and contacts lately? I mean really thought about how they are helping you learn, grow and find new business?

  I had the opportunity to stop and think deeply the other day about this. A dear friend of mine has been trying to start a food-service business for several years, and it’s been going slowly since she’s also raising two small kids. Now she’s ready to get back in the game full-time, and is worried about how to reconnect with previous customers. She assumes they’ve all forgotten about her.

  That’s when I reminded her about one of my favorite success quotes: “Business is a contact sport.”

  That means that you have to stay in touch with folks so they know what you’re up to, what you’re selling, what your capabilities are. My company has been in business for over 11 years now and has what I feel to be a well-communicated skill set, but every so often I’ll have an existing client ask me if we know anyone who can provide a service that my company can totally support. Obviously, that means we need to stay in contact with all our clients about the core services we offer, and remind them about other skills that may not be top of mind for them. That’s one reason we have a quarterly newsletter we send to clients and prospects, detailing new skills we’ve learned, sites we launched and interesting industry research we’ve run across.

  Like my friend, I was worried when we first started the newsletter that clients wouldn’t be interested in this info since we hadn’t pushed it out to them before, but in fact, we got great feedback from clients that were excited to see what other Bean Creative clients were up to and get ideas for future work.

  So, whether it’s attending networking events, industry conferences, reaching out to current/past/future customers, remember to keep in contact with your customers. Staying on their radar in a meaningful way is key…and much better than the alternative of falling off their radar altogether!

  Layla Masri is the president of Bean Creative, a web development studio in Alexandria, VA.

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