One of the most important things you can do no matter what type of business you run is to get out and network. They say that the secret to success is working hard, working smart, never giving up, and making lots of friends. You cannot make lots of friends if you do not get out there and meet and greet new people.

Any business no matter what type you run, it makes sense to ask your customers, your very best customers to give you referrals of new potential clients. This is all part of networking and if you want to be successful you are going to have to do it.

Lately, with online social networking it appears that everyone is going online to try to network. The only problem with this is you never get to look the person you are talking too into the eyes and make that solid personal connection that you can in real life.

Many folks that own small businesses also set up a blog and they allow people to become their friends and join, or take their online newsletters or subscribe to their blog. All this online networking is all well and good but it is not the same, and it cannot yield the same results as a customer that actually walks and your store to buy something.

If you go to one of the large booksellers like Barnes & Noble or Borders Books you will note that the books that have to do with online social networking are quite vast in numbers. There are literally 10 to 20 new titles every single month it seems; all around the topic of social networking online. And there are lots of business books giving people advice on how to network better using the Internet.

Interestingly enough, the books on how to network in the real world, in service clubs, chambers of commerce, and working or volunteering in nonprofit endeavors only number in a few and those books aren’t selling very well. Nevertheless, if you want to succeed in business I would suggest that you also network in the real world because it will give you better results.

Now realize, I am not suggesting that online social networking for a small business or for a business professional cannot yield some results, but there’s no way it can compete with real-world results of real-world marketing and networking. Please consider all this.

Lance Winslow is a retired franchisor – Lance Winslow’s Bio. Lance Winslow is formerly the CEO of WashGuys family of franchises for instance one of Lance Winslow’s favorite companies on the team; http://www.windowwashguys.com/links.shtml/.

Article Source