The term “Networking” has been abuzz in recent years as many have been asked about joining one or promoting the idea of one in various platforms and streams. For a lot of people, the word has given off a disagreeable, almost negative, image of people inside a banquet hall, thinking and discussing ways on how they can all attain riches without investing too much money, time, or effort in doing so like the common man. Or even a coffee shop invitation that somehow leads to someone promising that your small bill can grow bigger in a short amount of time.

To clear up the biggest myth surrounding this concept, networking and multi-level marketing (of which is what people actually think of when someone mentions networking) are far from being similar despite them being mistaken as one and the same. This wrongful connection between the two is the reason why networking as a discouraging image for many and has made it hard for networkers to actually dispel the wrong image.

Successful networking is more about getting to know the people in your industry and those outside who can help you develop your career, business, or even your personal community. Like how it connotes in the actual sense of the word, it’s about connections and relationships that are mutually beneficial. Networking is about meeting people who can help you find potential candidates for your business, new investors, clients for your services, and even individuals who can help you increase awareness for the issues and matters that you and your business stand for and care about.

Networking also helps you stay visible. Because you meet and communicate with potential clients, business partners, investors, and the like on a regular basis to establish and maintain business relationships, you are able to raise your personal profile and help keep you in the minds of the right people. It also helps you stay current – connections who share information with each other through their network as well as attending seminars help you be more aware of what’s new in your industry and in the industries that affect yours.

In this sense, networking now looks to be quite different from multi-level marketing. With networking, the relationships and connection that you gain can benefit you as much as it benefits the parties that are also involved in the network because there is sharing of information, resources, services, and anything else that can add value to the potential and/or existing relationships that you have cultivated. Networking, in this sense, is much more than a get-rich-quick scheme – it is an ever-expanding and cultivated the web of connections. Find out more about networking and how you can succeed in it with following infographic developed by team «Phil.Exeq«.