Networking 101 - Relationship Building

Networking 101 - Relationship Building

By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd

It is said that ‘sales come purely from people’.

As true that that may be, we still have to ‘trust’ people and there is a whole lot of ‘personal touch’ that would need to enter the equation too.  How about ‘value add’ or being ‘unique’ and offering something that no-one else does?  Then of course there are things like pricing, quality and delivery, and I suspect that I have only just begun to scratch the surface!

So why am I talking about all of these in a Networking Tip?  Well it’s really quite simple – you see none of the above would happen if a relationship had not been built or a referral not been made.

Think about it for a moment – we have built relationships with all of our suppliers (although I suspect some, like banks, cell phone providers and the post office were out of necessity rather than choice) in both our personal capacity and our business capacity.  Even the big ones like Woolworths or Pick ‘n Pay, we go to because our parents went there to do the grocery shop, or someone told us about a special that they had on or they give good value for money. Whatever the reason is and whether it is with a specific person there, or just the brand name – the relationship is built.

Networking for me is about meeting people, quickly and effortlessly so that I can start building relationships with those people.  The more people I meet, the more relationships I can start, the more business walks in through my front door. 

So if sales ‘comes purely from people’ doesn’t it stand to reason that the more people I have in my circle of influence the more sales I am going to generate?

It works for me!

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za