Grow Your Professional Network and Never Cold Call Again

4/30/2008

Grow Your Professional Network and Never Cold Call Again
By J. Miles Harding

“I hate making cold calls!”

How many times have you either said this yourself or heard others exclaim the same? There is no aspect of selling that causes more stress, more angst and more bad feelings than cold calling. And I’m here to tell you that you simply never have to do it again... unless of course you want to.

The Secret to Never Making Cold Calls Again

So what’s the secret to never making cold calls again? Business networking. Not just any type of business networking, but “business networking done right” (sm).

Why do business people cold call in the first place? People cold call to expand their circle of contacts and meet (no matter how cold the introduction) new people that may have a need for their product or service or may know someone else who may have a need for their product or service. The key point here is that cold calling, by definition, gets your message in front of new contacts.

Therefore, it stands to reason that in order to effectively use networking to replace cold calling as a business development tool your networking system must supply a steady stream of new contacts. Makes sense so far?

The Strength of Weak Ties

In his 1973 paper entitled “The Strength of Weak Ties”, sociologist Mark Granovetter makes a convincing case that a broad network of what he termed "weak ties" is more productive and valuable than a small group of "strong ties".

What he found is that you don’t need to know someone extremely well, or meet with them frequently in order for them to become good sources of introductions. In fact, since by definition a “weak tie” is not closely associated with you, he or she provides a connection to a different, wider group of contacts and thus represents a more powerful networking connection than someone who knows you well, but is connected to pretty much the same group of people.

This is excellent news for the business networker that never wants to make cold calls again. It means that if you can consistently meet with other business people you do not currently know you can form a broad network of “weak ties”. These “weak ties” in turn, can provide warm introductions to the types of individuals that you have been trying to reach through cold calling.

Building Your Broad, Diverse Professional Network

Many avenues are available to the business professional that is interested in building a broad network of “weak ties”. One of the most cost effective and time efficient is http://www.bizblinddate.com/. This service connects like minded business professionals together for face-to-face business introduction meetings. These meetings establish the beginnings of a “weak tie” that can then be leveraged by both parties for mutual advantage. A tutorial on how to conduct an efficient and effective business introduction meeting can be viewed at www.bizblinddate/meeting.com

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