Real Business

11. Treat the business networking club as if it's your best client

Ideally your networking club needs to become your unpaid sales force. How much time would you spend on nurturing a potential sales force of 10-40 members? Be prepared to put in significant time and effort into your business networking club. This investment will start to pay off as soon as they know how to spot an opportunity for your business, and want to tell you about it. This doesn’t happen magically all by itself just because you've become a member. Therefore, take the time to be visible to your group members and actively find them opportunities and referrals. Normally, this will prompt reciprocation from the members of your business networking club.

12. Be confident in your ability to deliver on your business’s promises

When someone in the business club gives you a referral, they are putting their name and reputation on the line for you. Before anyone will be prepared do that, they need to be confident and trust that you will deliver on what you say you are going to do. They will only get this confidence from how you speak about your business, you doing what you say you are going to do, and the success you have had with your business.

13. Turn up regularly

To generate a referral from a member of the club, you need to have achieved "top-of-mind" status with them. This means that when they hear about a problem or meet a client or contact, they think about you and how you could possible help this person. For example, if you're a member of a busines networking club which meets monthly, then if you miss one meeting, it will be two months before you get an opportunity to see the rest of the club. This is more than enough time to forget about you and your business.

14. Help the members identify a potential source of business for you

Business networking clubs can often attract members from all different walks of life. Indeed many business networking clubs have a "exclusive" profession policy that only allows one member from each profession. The members of the club will not know your business as intimately as you do. Therefore, you need to educate the membership on what an ideal lead or referral for you looks like. They need to be able to spot the signs that someone could be a source of business for you. For example, if you're a private client solicitor whose practice has a conveyancing speciality, you need the members of the club to know that your firm is great at helping people who are thinking of moving house.

15. Don’t sell directly to the club members

Those people who generate a large proportion of business from business networking clubs have cottoned onto the fact that you need to sell through the room, not to the room. Whilst there may be potential clients within the room, your aim should be to "recruit" the members of your club to be your unpaid sales force.

16. Bring along guests

Guests can be a valuable source of referrals and business for all the members of the group. Do take your time to ask people in your network to join you at your business networking meeting.

Heather Townsend, Britain's queen of networking, is the founder of The Efficiency Coach, a company that helps professionals achieve better business results for less effort. Follow her Joined Up Networking blog for more useful tips and tricks. She has just been commissioned to write the FT Guide to Business Networking.

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