Business Networking is about Giving First
Business networker: Marianna Barba
Growth Training GroupI’m Marianna from Growth Training Group. We help small businesses and organisations stay compliant in the area of first aid and mental health first aid.. First aid is one of those things that most businesses need to have a first aid officer in place. And obviously it’s important to make sure that you’ve got your staff fully trained.
Why I value business networking
Networking helps me on a personal level and helps my organisation to achieve the goals in particular about attracting like minded clients, and connecting with people in an environment where I’m able to connect with them on a personal level and understand their business and how my business can help their business.
And more importantly, networking for me is about not selling to people but finding referrals and allowing them to shine with their clients. What’s my most awesome story about networking is I think it’s about, you know, be really clear who you’re looking to connect with and who you’re who’s gonna add value to your business and how you can add value to their business.
So it’s really important that it’s not just about what you’re gonna get. It’s also about what you’re gonna give, and I think that’s a really important part of networking.
My networking groups
I belong to a number of networking groups. My formal networking group is BNI. The things I like about the BNI network is the accountability component. And it’s definitely made an impact on my business in terms of increasing my visibility with people who have like-minded goals, which is really important to me.
I have an informal group that we all work in the same industry. Yes, we’re all targeting the same in interest industry. For example, we’re all interested in attracting new childcare centres. They offer complementary products to what I’m doing. So when we’re in there individually talking to our clients, it gives me something else to sell to them that keeps them really sticky with me.
And then there’s informal networking groups where just it’s more meet and greet.
