From Business Cards to Business Relationships: Personal Branding and Profitable Networking Made Easy, 2nd Edition

Step 4: Commit Your Resources

To build your network you will have to participate in activities that connect you with people. This requires time and money. How much time and money you need to spend will depend on your goals, objectives, resources, and timeline. It will also depend on your personal and work commitments plus your bank account.

To spend time with people who have money to invest or donate, you will have to go where people with money go—which will likely require more funding. To meet small start-up business owners who have less disposable income will require fewer financial resources.

Set an initial annual budget and review it after a few months. You may need to redirect resources from your advertising or direct-marketing budget to accommodate your new networking objectives.

How much time are you willing to invest to build your ultimate network? No doubt you are busy, but if your goal is to build a profitable network, you will have to set aside time to network.

A reasonable and effective pace is to commit to one or two business events and three one-on-one networking activities each week. There are times in the year when everything seems to happen all at once. Yet, there are other months when it feels like you're living in a ghost town. Make this cycle work in your favor. Slower times of the year are perfect times to connect one-on-one. You can have fewer one-on-one encounters when the event circuit is particularly heavy, as you will no doubt see contacts at events. ...