Becoming a Master Networker - Tracking Your Results

Speaking for myself, I am all about R.O.I., Return On Investment. As such, I look at my networking activities as investments rather than expenses. While I can tell you that I can credit millions of dollars in projects directly to my networking efforts, you are going to want and need to track your own results.

It’s not difficult, there are only a few key metrics to monitor, and the tools to do so range from zero cost to whatever you want to spend. If this is the only thing that you want to track … free is more than adequate.

However, if tracking your networking activities and results will be a subset of a more advanced CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application, you may want to spend a bit more. If you already have a good CRM, you should be able to easily modify it to include networking activities and results.

In terms of specific tools, a simple spreadsheet will work. Someone using Trello, a free project management tool, has developed a free networking tracker. Here is the link to the actual template that is used. Me, I like a CRM and you can get a good one for 100% free from, as examples only, either Zoho or HubSpot.

What do you want to track?

Referrals given to who
Referrals received from who
Sales (who, what, how much) made as a result of a referral
The same as the result of a general lead

Here is a suggested simple model for a CRM …

Networking partners become contacts. You can use tags to separate them however you like. This could be by what organization they belong to and/or their industry.
Within the contact record you record any activities, and you can generally classify these, such as “referral given” or “referral received”.
New opportunities from referrals are tracked within your CRM pipeline and these opportunities can generally be tagged by their “source”.
“Sold” reports are then generated by source via the pipeline interface.

Now, match the results up against expenditures (dues, time, other expenses) and then make your own decisions. Not that difficult to do and your actions will be based on actual data vs. a perceived gut feeling.

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!