Offline networking; good business for your online business

January 20 2009 Comments

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When most people think of growing their online business they tend to think of what they can do online in order to help, however I believe that offline should be playing a big role as well. While I suppose this would apply to marketing also, at least for the topic of this post I will be focusing on networking.

To begin with, and give a little disclosure, this is something that I realize I still need some work in. This is a mistake I have made consistently over the years I have been working online, and it is one that I intend to correct. Over the years I gravitated heavily toward working (and feeling comfortable) online because I have always felt it was easier to interact, yes I suffer from social anxiety, which can at times be pretty uncomfortable. In the past, I would say this has most likely held me back.

So what can a person do to grow their online business in an offline environment, especially if they are not as eager to meet face to face. That is pretty simple, at least to put into words, for me its still harder to accomplish. You must suck it up, and face your fears and learn to meet and speak with people.

A good way to start, and one that I have been realizing the benefit of lately is with meetup groups. These groups can be found in a variety of places, personally I found some using Twitter and Meetup.com. I currently belong to two groups, one is with TampaBloggers of which I have attending several times and the other is the Tampa Internet Business Mastermind group of which I have just found and still not attended yet.

The TampaBloggers meetups are generally care free and social, they tend to be more on the fun side then the business side, but when you put a bunch of geeks in the same room we tend to still talk about the Internet a lot. The second group is a little more informative, in a quieter setting, and is focused more on people who are specifically into making money online. You will notice that I picked two different types of groups, mainly because I believe that a mix of the two will give me more of what I am looking for.

It is important to point out that by attending meetups like these, I would not say that you are going to rapidly increase your audience, but instead you will meet and hang out with other like-minded people and most likely learn some tips and tricks. Then, the smart or motivated person will be able to take what they have learned offline and apply it to their online business, and in turn you should hopefully begin to see some growth.

Another benefit of these groups, and one that I would say is equally important is to just find people who are in similar situations. When working online we sometimes miss that office setting, maybe not the cubical or silly office meetings, but the water cooler talk that can sometimes help you get through a rough patch. After all, sometimes that perfect job is not so perfect, and at times it just helps to get it out in the open.