Do you sometimes wonder whether you are wasting your time going to Breakfast Events, After Five Business Meetings, BNI Chapters and the like?
I often think that I am just going for the company (I am – it can be a lonely business being a sole operator working from home) or whether there will be some genuine connections made.
One day though, I had a phone call out of the blue from someone who came and visited our BNI Chapter about eight months before. I resigned from BNI (Business Networking International for anyone who doesn’t know – a great concept and certainly gave me some excellent connections, and hopefully I was able to bring them some excellent connections) earlier this year, but this was someone that had heard me speak many months prior and kept it in the back of his mind that I was the sort of person he needed.
I ended up working for him for more than a year until my personal circumstances meant that I had to find someone else to help him. It was an enjoyable working relationship and gave me an insight into an industry that I had never thought about.
So, yes, networking is very important!
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