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Starting Your Network
To start your network you will need to list everyone you know including business colleagues,
personal friends, casual acquaintances and people you meet in your every day life. When listing
business colleagues you should include everyone you have known at your present and previous employers.
You should also include people you have had dealings with in other companies. This may include
customers, suppliers, competitors, accountants, solicitors and anyone else you have dealt with.
Do list literally everyone you know.
Record Keeping
When you are networking you will need to keep meticulous records of both people and companies.
You will also need a diary to put your appointments in and you should keep an up to date 'to do'
list. After each telephone call/meeting you should update your records with any information you
have gleaned. You should use a sheet of A4 paper per record, i.e. one per person and one per company.
Store your records alphabetically - otherwise you will never be able to find anything.
For each person you will need to know their full name, home address and telephone number (if
you know them very well), the name of the company they work for, business address and telephone
number (if you do not know them very well), the name of the person who referred you to them (if
you do not know this person directly), the names of people this contact has referred you to and
the companies they work for, how does this person know the referee (e.g. they may be a supplier,
friend, etc). You should also keep a record of each telephone conversation/meeting with this person,
including date/time of meeting, what was discussed and any actions arising from the meeting.
For each company you are interested in (or may be potentially interested in) you will need to know the company's full name, its address and telephone
number, the names of any contacts you have in the company, any other information you have on the company, including press cuttings, annual reports, company
brochures and any information you have gleaned from your contacts.
4. Making contact.
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