The Essentials
- In the early development of your business, spend at least 50% of your time networking.
- Build a team of support to lift you up when you have a bad day, when you face a daunting challenge or when you just have a small win to celebrate!
- Think of networking as an opportunity to keep growing your startup. Each person you meet is an opportunity to meet a potential customer, investor, supporter or advisor.
Want your startup to grow faster? Start networking even more than you do right now!
Networking is THE most impactful activity to grow your business. Yet why do so many startup founders resist it?
In the early development of your business, spend at least 50% of your time networking.
Ask yourself: How much time each week do you spend meeting potential customers, investors or advisors right now?
Introducing yourself to new people makes you feel vulnerable. It opens you up to rejection and criticism.
When you are pouring your heart into your big idea, it’s no fun hearing everything you still need to do to improve it!
Instead founders retreat to “safer” and more solitary work activities like product development, ideation, strategic planning, fussing over their logo or worse, losing themselves in social media doom scrolls.
Sure, they are working hard on their business, BUT are those work activities going to help them grow more quickly by understanding what’s on the minds of their potential investors and customers?
Nothing will give you more clarity about all the different decisions you need for your business than by gaining lots of perspective from other people by networking.
Here 5 Ways Networking Helps Your Startup Grow Faster
- Get unstuck and get out of your head.
Have you ever noticed when you get stuck on a problem, you tend to get even more stuck on them the more you think about it? You can get unstuck more quickly when you seek out more brains to look at your problem. Next time you are stuck, reach out to three people you think might have an answer, whether you know them or not.
- Get support from advisors and supporters to maintain your momentum.
Humans evolved to work together, not alone. Think of your biggest entrepreneur hero. They didn’t get there all on their own! They had lots of help! As you build your business, build a team of support to lift you up when you have a bad day, when you face a daunting challenge or when you just have a small win to celebrate! Sheer willpower all on its own will not maintain your momentum for achieving success. Replenish your momentum by hanging with like-minded people who want to see you succeed.
- Get feedback from testers and customers to improve your product.
You aren’t building your product for yourself; you are building it for other people. Their needs, opinions and feelings about your product are crucial to its success! The faster you include your core customers in the development of your product, the faster you’ll take out the guesswork and build a product they’ll rave about!
- Get insights about refining your pitch by learning from investors.
At some point in your startup journey, you’re going to need funding to take your company to the next level. Start meeting investors right now to understand how they think and specifically, what they think about your concept. Like receiving feedback from your potential customers, listening to investors can help you identify ways to accelerate your growth.
- Get free word-of-mouth marketing from your most passionate advocates.
Don’t be surprised to meet people who will be beyond excited to hear you are trying to solve their problem, even if you don’t have a solution for them to test yet! The more you network, the more opportunities you create to find your most passionate customers! These will be your beta testers, as well as your most passionate advocates for finding you even more customers!
Think of networking as an opportunity to keep growing your startup. Each person you meet is an opportunity to meet a potential customer, investor, supporter or advisor.
Here’s a challenge for you this week: Find 3 people you haven’t met before who you think could help you grow your business!
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Stephen Warley is the founder of Life Skills That Matter.