Brand New Business Needs Networking
You just opened up a new business. Best of luck to you!
Well, luck isn’t really the key for success here. A good idea is important, timing people will say is crucial, and of-course L-O-C-A-T-I-O-N (usually said three times). But is that all?
We think not.
As a partner in more than one business I think one of the most important things is to let people know you have a business. It’s not that obvious: most people would think that they need to talk (or write for that matter) about their business only with customers and suppliers. This attitude could be the downside of your business, Let’s review this:
Costumers – whether it’s customers, clients or users you need, they are practically every way you look. Don’t judge the people you meet. Anyone of your friends, family or community could become a costumer (even a paying one). As mentioned in previous posts, most of the people in your surroundings are part of your network, and in this case part of your business’s network. If your business is a store or a user related online website, it means anyone and everyone are your customers.
Make sure to be enthusiastic about your business and tell the story behind your store/company/website to your bar-tender (before the fourth round of drinks), to your friends, their friends, former work colleagues, family and even to the annoying neighbor from across the hall. If you show enough motivation about your business to enough people, be sure, the word will get around.
Suppliers – With a new business comes great responsibility and even greater costs. You will probably need a place to rent, buy office supplies, online or offline storage, pay consultants and maybe even experts. Experts are the same as consultants but cost more 
. Except for getting a competitive price from your suppliers, you need them to be reliable and supply quality products.
Try to always find suppliers inside your network, if they meet your standards of course. Suppliers within your network will probably be more convenient about terms of payment and credit, be more loyal to you, and most importantly might speak highly of you to potential costumers or even becomes costumers themselves.
All this shouldn’t be instead of marketing and advertising, but it will make it much more effective, and its really cost-effective.
One last thing, looking for a job isn’t so different from starting up a new business from the networking point of view. We’ll discuss it in one of our the next posts.
