Josh Hinds over at Business Networking Advice invited me to answer a few questions about business networking. I was happy to oblige, and I hope you’ll check out my quick interview with him.

His first question was, “How do you define Business Networking and why do you feel it is important?”

I mulled this over for a few days. The way I’ve been currently thinking, and the way blogging has opened up so many doors, I didn’t want to answer narrowly.

And then I started thinking about tiny boxes. Josh’s question said, “business networking” but all I could think about in that context was getting into a room and trying to generate leads. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s clear there’s so much more to networking than that.

Networking in a tiny box means:

• Focusing on accomplishing only 1 thing.
• Keeping in a tight circle, be it with the same people, within the same industry, or same groups.
• Not being open minded.
• Not looking for opportunities that you didn’t know existed.

It’s really the word “business” that got me thinking. You shouldn’t network in a “business box” – you should just network.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend industry events, try and generate leads and sales and focus on business goals while networking.

But limiting yourself by networking in a box means you’ll eventually hit all four walls and that’s the end of that. Your ability to improve yourself, your business and opportunities for others just came to a screeching halt.

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