Professional Notary Services and NYNA joined forces to bring you a fabulous interview with Josephine Owusu. Josephine so kindly shared the following article about building connections to build your business.

Four years ago, we experienced the pandemic and the world as we knew it would never be the same again. I was in my last ever role as an employee, working as a Production Manager for a children’s educational app at the time and remember naively saying goodbye to my colleagues thinking that I would see them in a month when everything calmed down. What I and the rest of the world didn’t know was that things were about to get worse. The world was about to shut down one school, business, town, city and country at a time. As it happens, I wouldn’t see most of my colleagues again in the same setting as not long after, I was furloughed and four months later, I entered the world of entrepreneurship. 

At the time, I knew only two women in business and was new to this online world, but these two women were enough for me to grow my network. I didn’t know how to start a business, but I did what I knew best: I reached out to both women and told them I was starting a side hustle as a virtual assistant and asked if they knew anyone I could connect with. 

These two conversations marked the beginning of my business journey. One of the women hired me as a client and referred me to many clients afterwards.  

Within 3 months, I ended up:

• Being booked out with clients and replacing my corporate income.
• Becoming a business mentor.
• Connecting with like-minded business owners online.
• Discovering my unique gifting as a strategist and pivoted into offering strategic services. 

This all happened despite the physical restrictions to meet in person. 

This is the power of the internet.

This is the power of building your network through genuine connections. 

This is the power of speaking to those who are already in your network.

This is the power of not being afraid to make the ask. 

Before the pandemic, I strategically attended a couple of business networking events every month to be inspired and make valuable connections with other like-minded individuals. That strategy came to a grinding halt in 2020, but I pivoted and my local business network of two women grew to a network of hundreds of women across the globe because the internet has no boundaries.

It just takes one genuine connection and your life and business can change in the blink of an eye. 

 You may be thinking,

•  “It’s hard to meet people these days, people keep to themselves.”
•  “I don’t know where to start.”
•  “How do I find the best way to connect with new people?”
•  “People are more reserved since the pandemic.” 
•  “How do I genuinely connect with people and build a relationship after?”

Your thoughts are valid. What I will say is since 2023 I have observed that people are craving more in-person connections than ever before.  If there is one thing I will encourage you to include in your 2024 strategy, it is prioritizing connection.

Here are 5 things that you can do now to help grow your business network:

Get clear on your why.

I wanted to grow my network so that I could connect with like-minded business owners, where we could support and encourage each other on our journeys.  I also wanted to get leads for new clients.

      Think about why you want to build your network and also the value that you can bring to every new connection.

Leverage your current network.

This is the quickest and easiest way for you to grow your network. I knew only two women in business, but I had a conversation with both and asked them if they knew anyone who might be interested in the services I was providing. 

      Write a list of every single person that you know and categorize them by Family, Friends, current & past colleagues, and acquaintances.

      Decide how many people you will reach out to every week and contact them via the communication channel you think is best based on your relationship, for example, email or phone call.

      Tell them what you do and who you do it for, then ask them if they have one person that they can introduce you to who might need your support.

      Create a tracker in a spreadsheet so that you can track who you have been introduced to and the conversations you are having.

Choose one social media platform to build genuine relationships.

I went all in on Instagram for years and got most of my clients after connecting with them in the DMs. If I was to start again, I would go all in on LinkedIn because that is where my ideal clients are hanging out.

      Leave meaningful comments that add value to people’s posts.

      Have genuine conversations in the DMs.

      Connect with complementary service providers who share the same target audience as you, but they aren’t directly competing with you. An example of a complimentary service provider for a Virtual Assistant who works with attorneys could be a Chief Financial officer or an accountant who has a lot of clients in the legal field.

Identify and join virtual networking groups, free or paid memberships.

One of the main ways I was able to grow my network was through the different memberships I was part of. 

     Research and find virtual networking opportunities and membership groups that you can join. Be strategic and be careful not to overload your schedule.

     Connect on LinkedIn with those whom you have built a rapport with.

     Once you have built enough of a connection, build a deeper relationship through a video call.

      Listen attentively when they are speaking and make a note of ways that you can provide value to them without the need for anything in return. Can you make an introduction to an ideal client or someone who can provide something that they need? Is there a resource you can share with them? Is there knowledge you can share? 

You can even ask them how you can support them. 

      If you constantly provide value to those whom you build genuine relationships with, they will not hesitate to help you when you do have an ask. 

Connect in real life

Since 2023, my strategy has been to attend at least one in-person event a month, and I will be increasing the volume in 2024. Attending events in real life is one of the quickest ways to fast track the know, like and trust factor and now that everyone is craving in-person connection, there is more choice than ever.

•   Invest in in-person events, workshops, conferences, and retreats.
•   Be strategic and attend events that your ideal client or complementary service providers will attend.
•   Remember, it’s about the quality of connections and not the quantity.
•   Connect with people on LinkedIn, screenshot their profile and send a follow-up message up to 24 hours after the event. The key is in the follow-up!
•   Your follow-up message should be personable and include something from your conversation to remind them of who you are.

Remember to be open to connecting with people anywhere at any time. A few weeks ago, I was at a beautiful estate for a two-day Strategic Planning Retreat with a client, and I ended up connecting with the business owner of an events company that organizes PR Events for journalists with some of the largest car companies in the world. I was there to work with my client, but during our breaks, we would greet each other and have friendly conversations and through that learnt that we lived two towns away from each other. We connected on LinkedIn and now that is someone new in my network. 

If you prioritize genuine connection in 2024, you will see your network grow and find that more opportunities will come your way. 

Josephine Owusu is a Business Strategist and founder of The Owusu Collective, where she helps ambitious, purpose-driven Business Owners get their time back and double their revenue without overwhelm and burnout. She has over a decade of experience working with award-winning corporate Media companies and thriving startups from CNN, Cartoon Network and HBO to Magnify Magazine. She has experience managing large creative teams and numerous multi-6-figure production budgets and fuses her strategic expertise with her operations experience. 

Watch her In the Know Interview on the PNS YouTube Channel.