​Talk is not cheap. It’s invaluable.

I haven’t blogged for ages. It could just be that I am SO busy that I don’t have time to market myself, but that really isn’t true. There’s always time to write a blog or a quick update and I have been slacking.
 
But hey, you need inspiration or a deadline to get going and over the last few weeks I’ve had lots.
 
In my last full time role before going freelance I worked as Marketing Manager for CMC Partners, a business consultancy in Wallingford. They are a great bunch of people, and work with many different partners helping them with their business consultancies over a range of regions in the UK. As marketing manager, I created and drove the marketing strategy, but I also worked with these partners, helping them get new business and build up their clients.
 
The founders of CMC always strove to highlight the importance of networking.
 
It can be seen as a stuffy, regimented old thing – turning up at a breakfast, handing out business cards, finding out that you’re all marketing managers and there’s no one here that you get work from, and getting back into your car realising you spilt coffee down your top and you’ve inadvertently stolen the name badge. Again. 
 
However, it was the long term goals that CMC emphasised - talking to people, getting yourself known, helping them out with some knowledge or contacts in the hope that, when your services are needed, by them or someone they know, they will recommend you. And it does work.
 
It doesn’t just need to be to do with getting more clients on the books too. As I work on my own, I can get a bit lonely and although Boo is a lovely bouncy puppy she’s much better at chewing socks than she is at recognising my marketing skills. When I read her my latest blog about the rise of the aviation sector in India (expected to become the third largest aviation market before 2025, Indian aviation sector fans), she didn’t even wake up from her snooze.
 
So, a few weeks ago I had the chance to have lunch with a lovely person who I met at a networking event months ago, and from our chat, has been able to put me in contact with a few more people that I can have a coffee with, discuss the industry or whatever is going on and generally feel a bit more like I know what I’m doing and I do it well. And I do.
 
It’s not getting work in, as such, but it’s a great way to raise positivity, get some new ideas and make some more contacts.