Arguably one of the most famous and requoted lines from a film ever.
Most people understand the connotation.
In the 1975 film Jaws, Police Chief Brody catches his first glimpse of the Great White Shark that he’s hunting with Captain Quint onboard the Orca. He stumbles into the wheel house and says the now immortal line to the fishing boat’s captain. “You’re going to need a bigger boat”.
In order to make your success true, you are going to have to step outside of where you are. You will expand, either your network or your responsibilities or both. Because in the simplest terms, you can’t do everything that you need to do and still do what you do best.
I am a huge fan of networking. It’s a great way of building know, like and trust with people. It helps you to market yourself and your business. By talking to people and telling them what you do and more importantly asking them what they do, you will find not only potential leads but also people who could help you expand your business.
When I started my business, I knew I was a pretty good coach. I also knew I wasn’t an accountant, I didn’t want to spend my days creating adverts or chasing down leads – I wanted to coach.
Farming out the things I didn’t want to do or couldn’t do, left me more time to do what I do best. Which meant every hour I spent working on my business became more productive.
Another way of looking at it perhaps is that the reason people become accountants, advertising execs, social media managers – you name it, it so that you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
But, just like your ideal client, these people aren’t going to come knocking on your door asking to work with you. They have to know you’re in the market.
There are loads of ways to network, a while back there was a story in the press of a guy who had been made redundant and stood on station platforms handing his cv out. There’s social media obviously, but there, you can only encourage people to interact with you. It’s a bit like leaving your business card on a park bench and hoping the next person to sit down needs your services.
There are national and international organisations for business networking. Most local councils will run something.
And there’s a great by product of networking too, I really raises your confidence. You’re surrounded with similar minded people who want and encourage you to succeed.
All you have to do is make the first step and contact a group. A well run, proactive group will do the rest for you!
Try a few, see where you feel most comfortable – just get yourself out there and increase the size of your boat.
