I don’t know why it took so long to hit me, but linkedIn.com is a great resource. You fill out a profile, consisting of past education, employment, recommendations and anything else you’d like (this is not MySpace, so no bad pop music or pictures of pets to fight through). You then invite people you know who are already part of the network, or suggest they join up. The best part about it is that for each person you connect to, you are then 1 step closer to that person’s network. The whole chain reaction of networking thing starts up and before you know it you’re buddies with the president of a sausage company or whoever you’re looking for.

I’ve had my account for well over two years, slowly building connections whenever the thought occurred, but only recently did I become serious at networking. As with most small businesses, (I’m talking 1m & under, as some people think of small business as 10m & under) marketing funds and the ability to hire on a full time sales department can be limited, so you’re somewhat forced to be creative on a small budget.

 We are located in Louisville, KY, a place I’d consider to be pretty non-tech driven (especially after living in Columbus, Ohio for 7 years). It’s always been a struggle to find similar companies and connections in the local business world, and for the most part I’ve felt like my company was on an isolated island without resources, be they contractors, similar companies and the like to grow along side.

The great thing about linked in is that it’s not one of those forced social gatherings with the bad cash bar and way too many people wearing suits (do people still wear suits?). You have the opportunity to search based on business type, location, a person’s name, school or office affiliation and anything else that comes to mind making a very powerful research tool. I’m much more likely to contact someone/introduce myself if I know a person’s background involves LMS integration or eLearning development, whereas at a networking event all you have is a “Hello, my name is Billy Mays” name tag which means about 3 minutes of awkward conversation until you realize no you aren’t interested in balancing the pH levels of bovine digestive tracts (I made that up – no offense to the bovine digestive tract organizations out there).

All I can suggest is for other small businesses out there to use the resources made available to them, especially the free ones. Thinking back over the last 10 years, the biggest sales and best clients have all been introduced to me from the result of networking, so it’s definitely time to begin taking it serious. 

Feel free to take a look around www.linkedin.com, here’s a link to my public profile (which expands quite a bit if we’re in the same network). Happy networking!