Networking and selling is like oil and water, they don’t mix.
People who network and try to sell more often than not, fail. Networking is simply building relationships, in fact networking is the platform for creating the opportunity to sell but at a much later date.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we can be very lucky, meet somebody at a party who just happens to need our services and/or product so much that they buy there and then…but this is rare.
Building relationships consist of three key steps:
- Knowing
- Liking
- Trusting
Before we sell anything to anyone, we need to get to know who they are, what their business is all about and what exactly they need. If you approach selling like this, you’ll never actually need to sell in the traditional sense.
Build relationships through being interested rather than interesting and asking relevant questions. Doing it like this means that you will spot a possible need leading to a potential opportunity..not an opportunity to sell but an opportunity to fulfil someone’s needs.
