 Networking skills for managers and professionals are important both for internal networking within your business and external networking. All of us prefer to give work to people we know and trust. We prefer to buy from people we like. We prefer to employ people we are confident we can get on with. Building personal and professional relationships with a wider range of people within your own organization and external to it will help you have a better and more successful career. You will also have a stronger support network get more interesting work and have more fun there are a lot of positives. Once you know what to do and put in a bit of effort networking is enjoyable and relatively easy for most people whatever stage you are in your career. To help you improve your networking I'm going through these four ways to build your networking skills for professionals and managers. First aim to build genuine long-term friendships. Second focus on giving before asking. Third plan to follow up and nurture relationships and then fourth tips to approach complete strangers when networking. And for each I'll be sharing practical tips to make networking easier and more fun for you. In the last section I talked through the best tips to give them to me so you can confidently approach complete strangers at any networking events. My name is Jess Coles. If you're new here Enhance.Training shares people management expertise resources and courses for you to manage your team with integrity and fairness and get outstanding results. I've included links to additional videos and resources in the description below as well as a video timestamps so do take a look at these and if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. When building networking skills for managers it is important to aim to build genuine long-term friendships. Networking is about building relationships that are mutually beneficial over the long term. Don't expect to start networking and then the following week have lots of new work or job opportunities. Relationships just like networking don't work like that. To really benefit from professional networking as a manager or professional you must view networking as a longer term activity. Think about when you build friends socially. You start as strangers then you become casual acquaintances before you become friends and a few of those friends may become close friends. In networking both parties go through similar stages of getting to know each other, liking each other and then trusting each other. Only then will you get business opportunities, job openings etc. Approach networking with the aim of finding interesting people that you like and are happy to get to know while finding out what they actually do. Think how are you going to create multiple contact points over time and use these to build professional and personal relationships that will be mutually beneficial. When networking externally to your company be selective in the early stages of networking. You know successful networking takes work and persistence so don't build relationships with those that you are unlikely to be able to help or who are less likely to be able to help you. Focus on people that meet your professional criteria and who you have a connection with and enjoy spending time with. When building networking skills for employees I've always thought it useful to get to know as many people as practical within a business at least as professional acquaintances. You never know when you might need to ask for a favour or help and people are quicker to help those they like. A really important networking tips for managers is start networking within your own organisation and be targeted in your internal networking. Any professional networking with those above you in the organisation will be a very good investment of your time. Building relationships with those that decide on who gets what work and who gets promoted will absolutely help your career progress. I started networking in a targeted way after learning the hard way that not doing so will definitely hold you back. Aim to build long-term friendships that are mutually beneficial for both parties within your company first and then external to your company. The second key approach to building networking skills for managers is to focus on giving before asking. Most people start networking focused on themselves if thinking about what they want and need. While it is important to know your goals and what you're offering focusing on yourself is the wrong mindset to have. To be successful and skilled at professional networking for managers and building relationships with others focus on how you can help the other person. What knowledge, skills and contacts do you have that might be useful and beneficial for the other person? Only when you've found ways to help the other person and ideally done so more than once should you start asking for what you want. This approach utilises the social or reciprocity. When you've helped others they feel obliged to help you return. Focus on giving before asking and you'll be a lot more successful in getting what you want. Find out what they want to need by asking them or ask others already working with them or research their business and their market. First you have to ask them what are they working on. You could talk through the challenges they are facing or you could find out what resources they're missing or you could ask them what is keeping them up at night or you could find out what you have that will help them. When networking helping others first will build up goodwill and favours so that you can then call upon them in the future when you need help. Aiming to help first is great to improve your networking skills and is a great way to build good relationships quickly. Be as helpful as you practically can within the time you have available. The third vital action when building networking skills for managers is to plan to follow up and nurture relationships. Focus the initial meeting on finding common ground and connecting and then asking questions and listening to understand what the other person is looking for. If you achieve this in five to ten minutes say of chatting with a person at an event or after an internal meeting at work you have done well. Now comes the harder part that many people don't do or don't do very well the following up and nurturing of the relationship. This does take effort and not as much as you might think and following up should be enjoyable so it won't feel like work. Diarise time each week or month to devote to following up on your initial connections and nurturing the more established relationships. When networking externally after initially meeting an interesting connection organise a 20 to 30 minute video call or phone call. Your goal of this call is to find out as much as possible about the other person and what they want rather than pitching what you offer. Be clear about your criteria of what makes a good connection for you. Just remember great opportunities can come from unlikely sources so focus on connections that you get on well with as much as what they might potentially be able to do for you. You will also need to cover what you offer and who you offer it to as clearly, concisely and memorably as possible. When networking within your organisation focus on getting to know what the other person does, where they fit into the organisation as a whole and what their current challenges are. This should give you enough so you can follow up with some research, some analysis, insights, connections, help etc. Anything that will help the person overcome their current challenges. Then you have great reason to follow up with the other person. Being helpful in a proactive way will be a great starting point to establishing a professional relationship with that person. And then during your follow-ups get them talking about their hobbies, interests and personal life too so that you're building a relationship at a professional and personal level with them. With any networking work out how you're going to regularly contact the person and give yourself further opportunities to be helpful. Then you can start working into the conversations what you want. How frequently you contact the person depends on the time you make available for networking. Aim to speak to your contacts at least quarterly and send them something useful to them each month, such as articles, posts, journals, analysis etc. Keep up regular contact with all your contacts so they don't forget about you and this also allows you to remind them what you are looking for too. Keep your requests consistent and ideally memorable. Many people find approaching complete strangers at networking events the most intimidating part of the networking process. To help you overcome this difficult barrier let's go through some tips to approach complete strangers when networking. The first of my tips for networking in your company is to do your homework before approaching your target person. Find out enough information to give you talking points with the person that you want to build a relationship with. Ask around, look at their social profiles and find out what projects they're working on or are in charge of. Build up a few questions that will encourage them to talk about areas that they're interested in. Then you can create opportunities to ask your questions naturally and start the conversation. There are loads of events that you can do this at but it could be as simple as at the end of a meeting that you're both attending or you could even pop around to their desk and introduce yourself or of course you can speak to them at events or company socials. When you've done your homework and have a few areas to talk about the initial approach becomes a minor step rather than a big deal and when you're networking externally and you're in a room full of people and you're wondering who you should approach look for small groups of twos and threes. You're looking for small groups that are partially facing outwards rather than forming a closed circle. If you're not sure take a look at their feet and which direction they're facing it's a really easy sign to check. With two people for example you're looking for feet that are facing partially outwards creating V shapes rather than the feet facing toe to toe towards each other. People whose feet are creating V shapes are effectively leaving space for others to join the group. It was one of the best tips I got when I first started networking. So go up to people showing body language that is open for others joining the group and say while smiling and in a confident voice please can I join you or would you mind if I joined you? Introduce yourself, listen to their name and then ask them a question relevant for the event you're at. You know for example it could be I was really impressed with X speaker. Who do you like the most? Once you get used to spotting people that are open to others joining them external networking becomes a lot easier and much less intimidating. Enjoy your networking. So in summary networking becomes a more and more important skill as you rise to the ranks at work. Developing networking skills for managers is a very good investment of your time and I would say isn't an expected skill once you get into middle management ranks and above. Start networking within your own organization before networking outside of your organization. Get to know as many people are sensible and certainly those above you. Internal networking within your organization in my view is easier than external networking. You have so many more reasons to contact individuals and it's easier to stay in contact. As a reminder we have been through these four ways to build your networking skills for managers. Firstly, aim to build genuine long-term friendships. Third, plan how to follow up and nurture relationships. And fourth, how to approach complete strangers when networking. If you have any questions on networking skills for managers, four key ways to improve your networking please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.