Should You Network With Other Small Businesses?

Time is money. As entrepreneurs, we know that.


Time is a huge factor when deciding which networking events to go to. Although many of them sound like fun (especially during the holidays), you should only go to the ones that help your company meet its objectives.


So should you consider going to small business networking events, even if small businesses aren't your customer base? Chances are there are still a ton of big advantages for you to attend these small business events. Here are a few:


1. Two heads are better than one.

If you have a small business challenge, there is a good chance that someone else at the event is going through the same thing or has in the past. Small businesses go through 90% of the same challenges at some point. Why not learn from someone else's experience and leapfrog these difficult moments?



2. Small business is willing to help.

If someone approaches an entrepreneur with a business idea, there is a much bigger chance that they are going to be willing to help make the idea work than the average person. Entrepreneurs are always looking for good ideas, so they are more open to them. Also, entrepreneurs have all experienced rough times and are more likely to help others in that stage.


3. They may not be your customers, but they may talk to your customers.

Even though a small business owner may not be your direct customer, if they have the same target market as you, they could very easily be an extension of your sales team. Why not partner and double your salesforce? Affiliations are a great way to extend your marketing reach, grow your salesforce, offer a wider range of services, and help you go head-to-head with the big guys.


4. Support could be more than just business support.

Being an entrepreneur can be lonely at times. A lot of responsibility is on you. Having people who are going through the same thing (dealing with cash flow, customer, economy, and time management concerns), can give you the emotional support that you are looking for.


So next time you are debating on which networking event to attend, take a second look at mingling with other small businesses. The opportunities could be limitless as Microsoft, IBM, and Wal-Mart were all small at some point.

Does social media make sense for your business?

Almost every single small business is talking about social media these days. It is one of those tools that small business can use to overcome many of the advantages that larger businesses have when it comes to marketing. Brains beat brawn.

The two concerns for small business is always time and money. Social media doesn't impact your money, so that biggest difficulty for small businesses and social media is the time it takes.

How do you overcome this? From the very beginning figure out if social media makes sense for your business.

Answer yes if you are using social media can be used to get more customers, more suppliers, more marketing opportunities in terms of interviews and webpage hits, or meet any other goal that your company has through doing social media, and this has worked for you in the past.

Answer no if your customers, suppliers, and traditional marketing connections don't have a facebook account. You can't achieve goals for your business if the contacts that will help you get there aren't using social media themselves.

Answer yes if you are trying to connect with peoplw who are also using it. This is great to reach people who are using social media for business themselves, people who have access to social media at work or home, or people who are online social media butterflys.

Answer no if you are trying to reach people uncomfortable with using technology, people without computers, and people too busy to use social media frequently.

The heart of this message is, don't spend the time necessary for social media if it doesn't add value to your business.