Is online networking useful to your business? MPA asked three brokers about their experiences on the world wide web.
Sharon Banning, mortgage broker
Investor Finance
How long a member: two days
Site: www.myreferralnetwork.com.au
This is the very first online site I have joined and I only joined up two days ago. I haven't had any response yet but would imagine the online forums are a great place to throw ideas around, and get nuts and bolts solutions to common marketing and networking hurdles.
It's convenient and the distribution of referrals is much wider. The disadvantage is it's more difficult to build that personal rapport with people via the keyboard. Face-to-face interaction gives you so much more feedback as to how the delivery of your product is being received. Your network and scope of networkers and potential referrals is more limited.
Online networking will never replace face to face, but certainly compliments your networking system. We've all had experience with the faceless answering systems used in the corporate arena and people don't care for them too much. People like to feel that someone cares about their story, so you need to have that personal contact to build the relationship.
Scott Beattie, BDM
Cube Home Loans
How long: Chat sites - 5 years; Facebook - just recently; Plaxo - 8 years
Sites:www.transitions.org.au; www.facebook.com; www.myspace.com
It is a cost effective way to market and advertise and it enables you to handle the interstate enquiries at your leisure. The costs of travel (fuel, time, tolls etc) are usually avoided as people are happy to deal via fax, e-mail and phone - especially if they're interstate.
You do lose the personal touch that you would normally get, which may result in fewer referrals by that client and also the face to face relationship is not established as well as a 'normal' loan scenario or application.
I think that you also need to be careful not to shove it down people's throats - it's a happy medium - use the opportunity where appropriate.
I have found that the odd client that you may turn away is offset by the additional business that you find.
Marissa Rock, mortgage broker
Scope Lending
How long:12 months
Sites:www.myreferralnetwork.com.au; www.corporatechicks.com.au; www.bni.com.
I have built a good relationship with a CGU insurance broker, but apart from that one incident I only receive the odd phone call. I've received about three calls over the last 12 months.
[The advantage is] access to many businesses is at the click of a button. There's no limit to the number of networks you can join. It also increases your personal and company Google search as your details are input regularly.
[The disadvantage is] it's not very personable. You only have a few lines or seconds in which to get your message and details to the other person before they scroll down or click on another page, whereas in person you can give your elevator pitch with a bit of interest.
I'd suggest taking it the next step and setting up a small video piece to place on YouTube or Facebook or something similar. I believe this would be much more effective, not only from a business networking perspective but to clients directly as well.
