Can you make money by networking?

Absolutely. I have done this in various aspects of my business, either as a consultant for film projects or as a sponsorship consultant / referrer and in many other aspects. There's a nice quote - it escapes me who said it - but "Your network is your net-worth" - what they mean by that is there is incredible value in who you know, but not just that - it's really WHAT you know, about how to HELP them.

Couple of ways you can make money by introducing:

- Find out what someone (or a business) needs. It could be more sales / clients / or a service. Then figure out how to get paid for that. Let's say a business sells XXX service for $10,000. If you were able to bring them a new customer willing to spend that, do you think they'd be happy to pay you a 10% referral fee? Probably, as long as they have a healthy profit margin, and you agree this upfront. If you bring people what they need, they will usually be happy to share the proceeds with you. In my own example, event organizers for major celebrity events often ask me for help to introduce sponsors, for which they pay a commission. The equation is easy - they need sponsors to finance their event. So if I help them find a brand, or advise them on doing that, they pay me some of the proceeds for making that introduction. It helps them achieve their goal quicker.

- The other way is online. Many companies run "affiliate" or "referral" schemes. Just like Uber will give $10 of free rides if you share with a friend, online companies often give fees for clicks or leads to potential customers. Just do a search for "affiliate marketing" or look up sites like Clickbank or Peerfly. If you have a good online network, social network or email list, you will be able to make money by letting your contacts know about things that interest them.

The great thing about referral income is it is often a percentage, and so it has great leverage for you. The more the client spends, the more you earn, for often the same effort. So focus on referring either big clients, or a wide spread of small ones, but be careful of too much effort on one small client!

Hope this helps.

Hello there,

Technically you can make money by networking for companies, for example if you refer a client you will be paid say $100. Remember that networking is a highly personalized affair, and when you are personally seeking connections, its best to do it yourself, and when your company is seeking clients then they will generally have their own client acquisition team dedicated to such.

You can join programs which allow you to help companies seek out potential clients which is the best way to get into such a line of work, where you know everything will be done right - and there are thousands of people who work in client referral-esque services.

There are companies online which recruit experts to do networking for them to attract new clients however it is not a simple process, and remember that there can be a large amount of paperwork and due diligence involved before you even get started. If you are not paid, the chances of you actually being paid are very low if you are looking for clients for a smaller company.

To summarize, networking is a highly personal affair, and if you are a company, having an acquisition team dedicated to attracting customers is the best way to ensure you have a good, solid client base.

Thanks for reading.