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Networking for Results

Guest post by: Zeeman Haus

Article Overview: There are many meanings to the phrase "networking for results" in regards to business. Using your social status to achieve a business network could be considered networking for results. For multi-level marketers this is a whole new proposition and involves gaining a network of people for the purpose of recruiting them. For advertising purposes in the internet networking for results involves websites linked to other websites with your business in the web gaining hits and doing business. What we're going to discuss in this article is networking in relation to knowing who your major players are and a good way to approach your interaction with them.

Networking for Results

There are many meanings to the phrase "networking for results" in regards to business. Using your social status to achieve a business network could be considered networking for results. For multi-level marketers this is a whole new proposition and involves gaining a network of people for the purpose of recruiting them. For advertising purposes in the internet networking for results involves websites linked to other websites with your business in the web gaining hits and doing business. What we're going to discuss in this article is networking in relation to knowing who your major players are and a good way to approach your interaction with them.

Your major players are your distributors, your suppliers and customers. Networking with them will enable you to have a competitive advantage over your competition and is just plain good business practice.

Networking with your distributors will enable you to get a handle on what it is they need and what their unique challenges are. Knowing these obstacles will allow you the opportunity to work more closely with them and facilitate your ability to better market your product more effectively. For example, if you were to publish a magazine knowing that a majority of your distributors get all of their orders in on the first Thursday of the month. This is an advantage to you because you would know that they sometimes lag behind due to the sheer volume of arriving magazines. This will allow you to gear your shipping date to Wednesday. For you this means being on the stand a day earlier and for your distributor this is one less thing they have to do on the following Thursday. In addition to this, being on good terms with your distributors has the added benefit of coming with their insight into how their customers feel about your product.

Of all the people to be networked in with, customers are the most important. Without them you might as well not be in business at all. Market research and demographics might supply some direction, but knowing what your customers want is what will propel your business ahead of the competition. Networking for results with your customer involves promotions and having a customer service department that is willing to listen to the customer, their needs and their concerns. At times this could also mean direct contact with your customer. This depends on what business you are in. Promotions, email lists and events sponsored by your company is considered advertising, but is also a chance for you to network with your customers.

Networking for results in relation to your suppliers is not that much different in some ways than dealing with customers and distributors. Your suppliers will obviously have a whole new set of challenges to overcome in their business. Still though, knowing and understanding their means of doing business puts you in a position to help them to help you. A good example would be if you owned a business that was reliant on chemicals, like a cleaning business. Rather than run to the store, it is cheaper to order these materials and cuts your overhead. Ordering in bulk might be cheaper, but often how much cheaper is up to your supplier. Understanding how much they spend on shipping or delivery as well as what their manufacturing quotas might be would help you to possibly negotiate a cheaper price. For those businesses that supply raw materials, often there is not a lot of room for negotiation, but still maintaining a good working relationship with them is good business practice. Being networked in with several suppliers will allow some leveraging where price is concerned, but there is still a bottom-line in any business; a price no one can go below and profit.

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Article Tags: business network, business practices, doing business, interaction
Referred by: http://7inchlcdtv.com/



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Re: Make Friends...Literally BUILD them! - [quote="burnsrunner":1zobscwk]I agree! Networking is definitely the key word here. What does everyone feel about the different Networking platforms out there? Twitter Facebook LinkedIn what are some others?[/quote:1zobscwk] I am on Twitter and Linkedin, have not joined Facebook yet as my time is fairly limited and one needs a lot of time to devote to all these various networking platforms. Unless you do this full time (the networking I mean). MichelleJ
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