We’re British and we like to be intrigued and negative

The whole local business scene can in all honesty be a little bit of a nightmare, especially with all the physical and online networking which goes on. You start to realise that people who you don’t even know, somehow know you.

How does that happen? Why would they? Or should they, even be remotely interested?

The stark reality is that for many businesses you could say that it’s a pastime to know what’s going on and who's doing what.

Surely, this only goes to distract the business from its normal everyday operations. If not on the day, perhaps a day or so, or weeks after, as businesses try to understand how somebody knows somebody, or why, how they are working with such large organisations.

Fact is, it doesn’t matter, none of it matters. Sure people watch people and businesses watch businesses as it’s really easy to do that today, with the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn. Whilst on this topic, if posts and updates are seen to be really positive such as “what a phenomenal event that was yesterday” people will tend to take it all with a pinch of salt, possibly reflecting badly on the person or business using such phrasing, as the use of which could seem like overkill.

Regular timed, same tweets and posts can also tend to annoy people and as a result, it may not be long before you’re unfollowed or disconnected.

But if you dabble a bit here and a bit there, making a variety of quotes, informational snippets, and openly share other businesses, their works can have positive results both in perception and brand awareness stakes.

Also strangely enough it's what’s not said on the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn which makes people intrigued. Turning up to an event you haven’t been to before, or for a while, can get people talking as they may have otherwise thought you'd gone out of business.

Strange, we know. But by you focusing on your business and not on fellow networkers or online buddies this can also get the tongues wagging ”where are they?” “I wonder what they’re doing?” “I’m certain they’ve gone?”

For many businesses, a time comes when things need to be put in perspective. Focusing on their own business and not others is paramount to survival. We all hear about “Givers Gain” we also hear about “One to Ones” and “Referrals” but whether you choose to believe it or not the only one who will keep, or indeed get your business moving (in the right direction) is you. So don’t get distracted by wondering and second-guessing what other businesses are doing, it’s really a total waste of time and effort.

We all attend networking events and seminars in order to market our respective businesses, and doing network marketing in the West Midlands will help us gain business over time, not necessarily in the immediate future.

There will be those businesses that will be intrigued by how, and what you do. If so, just ignore them, unless of course there is a benefit to you. There will be those businesses that for some reason would like to witness failure, in such a case, be quick to identify who they are and ignore them.

For if you don’t ignore, before you know where you are you’ll be competing with them needlessly, in the wrong areas we hasten to add.