In this post I expand on the third tip in my series 5 Tips for Starting a Home Based Business: Build New Networks

In that initial, overview post I wrote about building new networks:

As my handwritten scrawl shows, the first version of this was “Build your networks”. The trouble is, while the networks we have now might sustain us for a while, our new business focus may demand, not that we trash our existing networks, but that we complement it with new networks relevant to our marketing strategy.

If you are starting your business now or giving it a re-boot, social media offers you literally unprecedented opportunities to build amazing new, and amazingly profitable, networks.

Facebook network, first 100, via TouchGraph

I am not for a moment minimizing the importance of existing networks. Just the other day I was reflecting on the fact that a large proportion of my business over the past 20+ years has come, directly or indirectly, through networks I already had way back when I first set up my consultancy business, literally from my kitchen table. Which means that network has been worth literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to me.

Our old networks may not serve us adequately into the future

The networks we have when we leave the corporation or the government office may well deliver us plenty of business for a while, and hopefully for a long time. As I have just indicated, I have been fortunate. On the other hand, we need to accept that after a period of time those networks may not be able to deliver as they could before.

Ever go back to a place or group where you used to be a “somebody” and see no one you know or who knows you?

We need to keep building our networks and be careful not just to stick with the ones we know.

As my good friend and master networker, Bill Vick, likes to say about networking, you should dig the well before you are thirsty.

And it’s not just about networking with potential clients. That is thinking much too narrowly. We need to build professional networks in fields where we would like to work and do business. That includes networking with our competition.

For instance, I have a network of coaching colleagues now, which did not exist before 2002 and one in social media, a network which did not exist for me before 2003. I could think of many of those people are competitors. I choose to think of them as colleagues.

And in fact those networks have been immensely valuable in terms of building my business, as well as in providing me with new, trusted friendships and professional alliances. Not least, they have also provided me with opportunities to serve the community, in various not-for-profit organizations within those networks.

I also have a network, small so far, of business colleagues in China or who are very experienced and knowledgeable about business in China.

It gives me great confidence to be able to tell clients that if I don’t know the answer to a question I can probably find someone in my network who does.

Look for scope to expand specific networks

As our business grows and changes, and as we get clearer about what we really want to be doing and the areas we want to focus on, it is a good idea to look at our networks and see where we need to do some more sowing and nurturing to make particular parts of our network grow.

There are now some great visualization tools that can help us with that.

As well as TouchGraph which produces visualizations of your Facebook network, as above, one tool that seems to offer scope for some interesting analysis and strategizing, is the LinkedIn Maps tool from LinkedIn Labs, which produces visualizations like the one below. I’m just familiarizing myself with this but already I can see some scope for thinking about my network and taking some strategic action to expand it in various sectors.

I haven’t figured out the key to the clustering of several groups under various colors. It does look as if:

the pink group, bottom right, is a coaching sub-network
a small, light orange group top right is a China network
the reasonably large, orange group, bottom center, is pretty certainly a social media network

Still working on the others, but the power for me of this kind of visual presentation is that it raises questions which I can usefully address in working out my own roadmap for engagement via LinkedIn for the next year and beyond.

For example, should I be looking to build a bigger coaching network, or say a bigger China network, and how would such decisions relate to and serve my business objectives?

Share your story

I would love to hear some stories of how your networks, old or new, have helped you in business. And of course I’m happy as always to respond as best I can to any questions about how to apply some of this thinking.

The series: 5 Tips for Starting a Home Based Business

Tip 1: Know Your Market Worth : Starting a Home Based Business Series

Tip 2: Build an Order Book: Starting a Home Based Business Series

Tip 3: Build New Networks: 5 Tips for Starting a Home Based Business

Tip 4: Ask for Help: 5 Tips for Starting a Home Based Business

Tip 5: Love the Business You Are In: 5 Tips for Starting a Home Based Business

Groupsite offers several ways to search for groups of interest

In the first of these two posts on looking for market conversations on the Groupsite platform I mentioned that I had not discovered “just the group” for my purposes, much less several such groups.

That said, I believe anyone looking for groups where they feel there is some shared interest could well find such groups on Groupsite. They are by no means all business oriented groups, although many are.

As an aside, I should mention that some time ago I happily recommended Groupsite as the preferred platform for a not-for-profit organization where I was at the time a member of the Board. We set up a closed group for the Board members and staff and another, more open group for the volunteers. This has worked very well, as far as I could see. If you have some responsibility for a community group or company, especially at a Board or executive level, I am sure you will find Groupsite very congenial, not just for discussion threads, but for filing, notices of meetings, minutes storing and so on. It’s worth noting in that regard that the paid subscription versions, starting at a very modest $29 a month, all offer enhanced security.

Back to finding conversations on Groupsite.

One of the many things I like about Groupsite is the display of information about individual groups. With any group you can see at a glance the group’s focus, the number of members, whether anyone can join or it is by invitation or request.

You can also learn something about where members live. Judging by the groups I looked at, this information is only partially helpful, as the output presumably depends on the extent to which members have provided the basic data. For example, the information for the group in the screenshot above accounts for only 22% of the group’s membership: New York, NY USA (11%), Reno, NV USA (6%), New Haven, CT USA (5%).

Several search options

As well as the general keyword search, you can search on categories, with eighteen category listings, from Business/Finance to Other. Don’t neglect “Other”: there were 2,262 groups under “Other” when I looked today.

You can also search on Most Members, Most Active, Most Recent and Alphabetical.

Results from “Most Active” should be scrutinized.

One group, of which I was already a member, looked very interesting to me and I dived in, contributing to conversations, leaving endorsements for other members…Then today I found that all of the recent activity on the group was by – me. I then looked more closely and realized that the group, with 2,854 members, was not what I would call active in any realistic sense of the word.

You can filter search results by Keyword, Country, State and City.

Roll your own

Although the primary purpose of this exercise is to look at possibilities for finding groups where you can become part of the conversation and, at an appropriate time and in a way appropriate to the group, introduce members to your product or service, another approach is to set up your own group.

Establishing your own group on Groupsite is as easy as falling off the proverbial log. Provided you are logged in (membership is free), you can just click on the link “Create a Group” in the top left corner of your screen, fill in the required details and you’re off to the races. And entice or persuade some of your friends or colleagues to join – you don’t want to have one of those groups with only one member, however much you like your own company.

I’m thinking now that a post or two on setting up your own group could be helpful – in due course.

Do please share any thoughts on Groupsite or on the “looking for conversations” topic in general.