Bandwidth Explained

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Hosting | Response: 0

Bandwidth is the total amount of data that can be sent in a given time between two computer devices. The more bandwidth that is available, the faster the server.

Any webmaster expecting a decent amount of traffic to their adult site will require a web hosting package that includes a large amount of bandwidth. This is so important, especially with the growth of your online business and, ultimately your sites. The more bandwidth your server has, the larger the number of surfers who will be able to view it at the same time, and the access it quickly will be. If you don’t have enough bandwidth, surfers will not be able to access your site as quickly, and that may turn them off which in turn, will mean they will leave your site.

For this reason alone, it is important to select a hosting company that can offer you a great deal of bandwidth. As an example, larger hosting providers will have T1 lines or fiber-optic relays to access the Internet; these will provide a fair amount bandwidth. Another way is to get a dedicated server which, in turn, gives you exclusive access to your server’s connectivity instead of sharing it with others, as such allowing for maximum hardware performance.

To calculate your bandwidth needs, you must know how large each page on your site is, including the graphics and any script usage you may have. Then, you multiply that by the number of views you expect the site to get every month.

For example, say you have three 5k images on your page and a 2k HTML file – you would have 17k of data on that page. Multiply that by your expected page views (let’s say in this case it is 100,000 per month), and you get 1.7 G of data to be transferred that month for that page alone. Now calculate this for each page, and you will know approximately how much bandwidth your entire site requires.

The best way of using bandwidth efficiently is to keep the size of your html pages low. In other words, ensure your HTML programming is adequate enough to use minimal amounts of coding for the purpose you want and, that your photos and graphics are small. To reduce photo file sizes you should always use JPEG format, which can reduce files up to 5% of its original size. Make sure to use the GIF format for graphics, as opposed to TIFFs or BMPs, which are generally much larger in file size.

If you attach URLs to your IMG SRC that link to another person’s images without their permission, this is known throughout the online industry as hotlinking which, costs the person you are linking the image of money and not yourself. For this reason, hotlinking, is looked upon dimly.

The unfortunate truth is that hotlinking is rife in the online industry. However, lets not let that deter you, by utilizing a file called .htaccess on your server, you can prevent other dishonest webmasters hotlinking your images.

As with most things in this industry, you need to shop around to find the best prices available to you. However, that said, as a general rule of thumb, a gig of transfer can cost between $1 and $5 these are usually thought to be good prices for a gig of bandwidth. You can also get certain hosting packages that have a specific amount of bandwidth included in the price, however, the one draw back of these types of deals is that, if you go over that limit, you will either need to pay and excess bandwidth usage fee or, upgrade your hosting plan.

Article Written By Lee

Adult Employment Vacancies

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Employment | Response: 0

For some the prospect of being able to work for another company online is something that they may ultimately want to pursue however, just how do you go about finding work for one of the many adult companies and, more importantly, how can you ensure that you have a better chance of being hired for the job once you find the position you would like to have at the company?

Online Adult Employment – Job Types.

Working in the adult industry can take many forms however, the most commonly perceived adult industry job is that of a model but, what about other online job vacancies such as graphics designer, marketing manager, sales director, and webmaster support representative, just how do you find out what companies are hiring and more importantly, what adult employment vacancies they have.

Adult Employment Agencies.

For many webmasters the chances of finding employment in the adult industry at a ‘regular’ online employment agency such as monster.com may seem impossible however, that said, many of the larger companies have realized the value of the mainstream employment agencies and, as such are now advertising on these sites for their staff but where else can you look? Well there are actually several adult industry employment sites that adult webmasters can look at to find their ideal job for example Adult Staffing, Sexy Jobs and, Adult Help Wanted in addition to several smaller sites operated by companies such as Cybererotica.

Improving Your Employment Chances.

So now you know where to look for adult employment opportunities what can you do to ensure you have a greater chance of being hired? Well as with the mainstream bricks and mortar job market having a good curriculum vitae (CV) can be a good start, ensure you keep your CV regularly updated and that it contains pertinent information for the type of job vacancy you are looking for in addition, often the first method of contact you will make with these potential employers will be via email or cover letter, make sure that you spend some time to write a letter that is not only noticeable but, interesting and, more importantly, grammatically correct. Demonstrate in this first stage of contact with your potential future adult employer that you take pride in your work and, you might just get bumped to the top of the ‘must see’ applicants.

Adult Jobs – Overview.

Many webmasters forget that there is more to the online adult industry than being able to party with the best of us and, whilst this does form a chunk of the industry overall it is not conducive of you further enhancing your online career, take the time to investigate all of the avenues available to you and, most importantly, make sure you choose a job that you not only want to do but one that you will enjoy, your reputation is the one thing that a potential adult employer will take into consideration, if you have had several previous jobs all lasting for short periods of time, it wont look as good to them as if you have only had a couple of jobs for a lengthier time frame. Most of all remember that whenever you contact a company looking for employers, make sure you are prepared and professional even if it is just sending them a quick email asking for further information.

Article written by Lee.

Building Your Own Opt In Mailing List

Date: 2011.02.21 | Category: Opt-in Mail | Response: 0

Despite the constant launch of ‘new and improved’ email collection programs one of the more popular emails I receive each month ask how webmasters can actually start their own opt-in email list for surfers. Surprisingly enough, this is a fairly simple process and, should only realistically take a webmaster 10-15 minutes to have an opt-in email script installed.

However, the second type of email I get from webmasters who have already installed one of these scripts is asking how they can ensure that surfers sign up to their lists this is what I will approach in this article.

One of the easiest ways to make sure surfers join your opt0in list is to offer them a financial gain by doing so, I don’t mean you should literally pay them for their email address but, why not offer them something for free? A daily picture by email, free porn site access etc etc.

The next biggest mistake I find are that webmasters simply place a collection box saying something like ‘enter your email address here for our newsletter’ and, lets be honest, it isn’t very enticing. Ideally you need to have a ‘headline’ that will catch the surfers attention and actually ‘make’ them want to join your list. Be specific yet be vague (bit hard I know) and you’ll soon see your list grow from one new subscriber a week to hundreds of them!

The next thing you need to take into consideration is how quickly, not only your site, but the page with your collection box loads, if you are using a pop-up console, make sure it is heavy in text not graphics with the first words at the top not saying ‘free porn’ but a similar meaning text, everyone and their dog has seen the words ‘free porn’ on countless other porn sites. Yours NEEDS to stand out!

You should use an effective title if you are going to be using pop-up windows for your email collection. in the title bar don’t have the window called ‘pop-up’ have it named appropriately for the niche you are trying to collect the surfers email address from. Make it relevant, make it concise.

Balance the collection page, any type of page you build for your site should at least be appealing to the eye. Meaning that your fonts, colors and actual text need to contrast together perfectly. If you do use images on this page try to have them prominent yet not overbearing to the surfer.

Offer a way to close a pop-up if this is what you are using to collect the emails after all, they (the surfer) may decide they don’t want to give you their email until they have seen what your site can offer. In the same way, make sure you have a link from your sites to your collection page so, if a surfer decides they do want to give you their email address they can do it without the need of closing your site and reloading it afresh.

Overall however, the best rule you can follow is to keep to the point and keep it simple. This way you will gain the surfers attention quickly and easily and, the surfer will not be distracted from the main purpose of having them on your site – getting to your sponsor.

Hopefully the information above will enable you to start having some more success with your traffic and, once you have the surfers email address make sure you treat it with the respect you would want your own to be treat with, an email address is a sacred thing to most surfers, if you Spam them daily they will leave your opt-in list quickly however, if you send them a ‘newsletter’ once a week / month filled with relevant information you will soon find your list growing exponentially.

Article written by Lee.

Turning Opt In Mailings Into Pure Spam

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Opt-in Mail | Response: 0

Spam is frowned upon net wide and even more so than usual in the online adult industry especially unsolicited email Spam however, many webmasters do not seem to grasp the essential basics about what Spam is and more importantly, the point in which they themselves become Spammers, this is what we will take a look at in this brief article.

Double And Single Opt In Mailings.

By themselves single and double opt-in mailing lists can be a very effective method of promoting your or, your sponsors sites however, many webmasters forget the one fundamental rule when mailing their opt in subscribers, send them what they actually opted in for otherwise, you are spamming the list and ultimately, the recipients.

The line between opt in mailings and Spam is a very finely drawn one at best however in the adult industry it seems the edges of this line are more blurred than almost anywhere else. Quite often you see webmasters on a variety of message boards selling their ‘opt in mailing list’ to one or two other webmasters however, when does the opt in to Spam equation fit in? This is what we will look at next.

Turning Opt-In Mailings In To Spam Emails.

So you have collected opt in email addresses diligently for the last god knows how long and, you have successfully emailed those lists numerous times with some good results to show for it and you want to let others profit from your lists whilst making some money for yourself at the same time. Time to sell the emails you have collected. This is your first mistake, the email addresses which you have collected for your subscriber mail outs have been opted into YOUR list not another webmasters and well, the second that another webmaster buys this list from you the list itself becomes pure unadulterated Spam, nothing more, nothing less.

Of course, you don’t have to sell the list, you could offer the list up for trades however, the same thing applies, the second your mailing list changes hands that list not only becomes worthless to the person who has purchased it but, in effect, the list has now become worthless to you.

Adult Opt In Email Lists.

To make a long term profit from your opt in mailing lists the one thing that you should ensure is that the list you have remains clean and, more importantly than that, remains private, if you have spent several years collecting these email addresses why would you turn the revenue potential of them in to nothing less than worthless overnight? Keep the lists as clean and as private as possible, the next time a sponsor opens a paysite that is on the same topic as your mailing list you can send your opt in mailer to your database and profit from the unexposed site.

Adult Opt In Mailing Lists Overview.

When all is said and done, as mentioned above opt in adult mailing lists are a very hard to find commodity and, if you have a list for a specific niche or market the list becomes even harder to find, keep your list as clean as possible and ensure that you and only you use the opt in mailing list. By keeping the email addresses you have collected out of the grasp of other webmasters you have the potential to make revenue from that list for as long as you maintain it however, all of your hard work can be undone overnight if you sell the list to the wrong webmaster. In short, if someone opts in to a mailing list owned by you, make sure you are the only person who mails them from that list otherwise, you have indirectly spammed that email address.

Article written by Lee

Personality Plus

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

I have been selling to the gay market now for 5 years. And one trend I have noticed that works best in ANY marketing attempt is to make it personal as possible. Now this is true in any marketing venue; however, the same tactics of Personality I have used in the straight market were not enough for the gay market.

The gay market is better served when the surfer BELIEVES, not just feels, you know him and know what he wants. This goes back to my previous comments on knowing your niche.

I really believe that the “1 to 1 dialogue” you can have with your surfers is more important than just high traffic averages when making sales. Giving him the sense that he matters to you, a sense of community, a sense that you are here just for him is all accomplished by adding your own personality to your work.

In many avenues I have said “talk to the surfer”. I have said it so much you are all probably sick of hearing it. But it WORKS. With many of my straight sites, I attempt to speak quickly and to the point, because while I know straight people I don’t know what is going to fly all the time. In those cases, though, instead of saying, “Click Here for Great Sex Sites” I will probably phrase it as “The best site on the net and Cheaper than a six pack of beer”. Am I being heterophobic with my lack of enthusiasm? Maybe. It is how I approach it and it does work.

On my side of the fence, I would talk the talk, differently. While the basics remain the same, “talk to the surfer”, I approach it in a more personal manner… Again, instead of using “Click Here”, I would go with “Hmm, Hmm … I followed this yummy thing to Absolutely Male. I have to tell you, I had more fun here than anywhere else on the net. Made my toes curl and then some…” Enough of that now, huh? = )

I do not stop at just the marketing. I do the same thing when it comes to the body of my sites. I will add statements that include a recent trip to the local gay watering hole, the men I saw on the beach, my own experience with a man in uniform, and so on depending on the theme of the site. And, yes since I’m not a total sex fiend, I do make things up as I go along ; )

Recently, I have received letters from webmaster who have worked the personality approach. They have found a lot of success. However their bigger complaint was they now had a lot more bookmarkers than before. That’s great, as far as I’m concerned. This means they have been to glean a following of loyal surfers. And if you can work it, it is that loyalty that can make a HUGE difference. I think I will save how to work that loyalty factor for a future article or post.

The gay adult net has gone full circle. In the beginning, personality was the KEY to success. Then we followed suit with most of the adult web and moved away from it to a “here’s some porn now buy something” attitude. Right now, when the going seems to be getting tough, our surfers are looking for the exact thing that made us different to begin personality and community.

Article written by Gary-Alan

Favicon.ico – What Does It Do?

Date: 2011.02.22 | Category: WebDesign | Response: 0

Favicon.ico is the name of the graphic Internet Explorer 5+ uses in the address bar and when someone views their favorite bookmarks. There should be one beside the address of this page now if you are using IE5+. If you want to see favicon.ico in action among your favorites bookmark our site now by right clicking and selecting ‘Add to favorites’.

Internet Explorer looks for this file in the same directory as the HTML page currently being displayed, if it cant find favicon.ico it will then display the default Internet Explorer icon in the address bar. As for viewing of favorites, IE will check its temporary folder to see if favicon.ico is there again, if it is not located it will display the default white background with a blue ‘e’ icon.

For a webmaster there are three main advantages to using the favicon.ico ‘trick’.

The first, is that it helps to brand your site with a nice little icon that is easy to recognize.

The second, is that it makes your website more professional.

The third, is that your entry will stand out in surfers bookmarks over the others. This is especially good as, if you can get a surfer back to your site then you have another chance at making a sale.

Many internet users have a multitude of site bookmarks so, you need to use favicon.ico to give you an edge. I highly recommend using it and, now I’m going to tell you how.

First, you will need to create an icon file which is exactly 16 x 16 pixels. If the icon is larger or smaller IE5+ will just ignore it. As for the colors in it, 16 is standard. You can use more colors if you want but, the more colors you use, the larger the .ico file becomes and, the longer it takes to load.

You now know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create this file you can take one of two routes.

The first is to convert and existing 16 x 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16-32 colors into an .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

You know the standards the favicon.ico file has to be, now to actually create favicon.ico . The easiest way of creating a favicon.ico file is to convert an existing 16 X 16 BMP or GIF graphic with 16 – 32 colors into a .ico file using converter software making sure to save it as favicon.ico.

Once you have created your favicon.ico file all you need to do is to upload it to any directory on your server that contains html pages. This way, when IE5+ searches for favicon.ico it will be bale to find it regardless of which page you are on.

That’s nearly all the areas of favicon.ico covers apart from, what if you want different icons for different parts of your website? Can this be done? The answer is yes it can. All you have to do is place the following HTML code between the <head> and </head> tags of your web page.

<LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”differenticon.ico”> (SHORTCUT ICON should be kept in uppercase).

Now when someone adds a web page with that code to their favorites, IE5+ will not look for favicon.ico but will look for differenticon.ico and if it’s there it will display it, if not the default icon will be displayed.

Using favicon.ico or the SHORTCUT ICON code is nice way to add a unique touch to your site, and of course will result in more repeat visitors than if you were not using it – which is always good for any webmaster.

Article Written By Le

What Happens Your Current Processor Bails?

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Billing Solutions | Response: 0

Whilst this is perhaps one of the hardest challenges that a webmaster of a paysite can face in the industry it isn’t as bad as they may seem at first after all, there are literally hundreds of processors to choose from ranging from credit card processors, dialer option, micro-sms billing and a wide range of other systems.

The first and foremost thing you should do however when confronted with this challenge is to try and contact your existing processor and find out what will happen to funds that you are owed, will you be paid (in most cases you will).

The next thing you should do is to evaluate your business billing methods are you offering multiple processors already? If so, simply switch to your backup processor and find a new processor to use as a backup.

However, what happens if you only have a single processor on your site what can you do then?

First things first, you need to make sure you choose a reliable payment processor to start off with companies such as iBill, CCBill, CCBill EU, Netbilling and Jettis are all good processors used by a multitude of sponsors and content providers amongst the other companies.

You will most likely find that these companies are more than happy to work with you in the integration of their system onto your site.

Whilst you are awaiting your setup of your new processor to ensure you do not lose any sales it may be an idea to divert your join page off to a dialer or, perhaps have some form of ‘internal’ billing mechanism set up so that, when you do change over processors you can seamlessly transition your member base across.

Now, presuming that you already have an existing member base what do you do then? How easy or hard is it going to be to transfer them across to your new processor? Well based on the situation some were confronted with when Visa introduced the new fees to process adult payments this can vary from webmaster to webmaster again, as before, the easiest solution for you would be to contact the company you will be using as your primary processor and see what they can suggest.

Hopefully, you will have access to a database of your existing members email addresses this will also come in handy to ensure you can keep recurring those members. Send out an email stating that you will be changing your processor and, ask that, if they would like to remain a member of your site that they update their billing information, it might also be prudent to offer them some sort of recompense for having them change processors perhaps something along the lines of 2 weeks low cost or even free access tot he site, this is sure to mean that most of, if not all of your existing members will input their billing information again enabling you to rebill them until they cancel their membership at our new processor.

Of course nothing is infallible so the best advice i can offer you is to work closely with your new found processor and make sure that the transition period happens as quickly and, as smoothly as possible.

Hopefully this article will be of some use to those who do get affected by their processors going out of business and, will also serve as a warning to have multiple processors in place for those who have not or will not have the need to change your billing company.

Article written by Lee

The Gay Adult Market – Gay Subcultures

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: Promotion | Response: 0

I thought I would take a break from writing about online adult marketing for a change and instead, give many of the straight webmasters looking to break into the gay market a bit of an insight into what makes a gay man ‘tick’ and, whilst this is going to be different from guy to guy, the one thing that will remain constant throughout is that this article is based on the gay lifestyle and subculture in both society and, the internet.

What Is A Subculture?

Lets start at the beginning shall we? To understand this article you are first of all going to need to understand what a subculture is well, a subculture as defined by http://www.dictionary.com is, ‘A cultural subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion, or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member.’

In layman’s terms, that means, that a subculture is a group of people (or individual) that have something different about them than other people.

In the instance of this article we are going to be looking at the gay subculture and specifically, how this culture is broken down into its own set of subcultures.

The Gay Subculture – Lets Define The Gay Culture.

Gay culture is the heritage of culture, knowledge, and references to which gay people fall heir by the fact of their sexual orientation.

Some individuals argue that there are to many gay people who do not participate in ‘gay culture’ for the concept to be meaningful or that gay culture in itself is placing labels on the stereotype most people think of when they thing about gay people however with this said, there are also those who argue the flip side of the coin. One thing is for sure however, gay culture certainly does exist and, within this culture itself there are many complex facets ranging from sexual preferences through to the types of vacation people take.

Gay Subcultures – The Facets.

Whether we choose to think about the different subcultures within the gay community or not one thing is for certain, the subcultures in our community are wide and far reaching from your local gay bar to Soho in a city thousands of miles away most of the gay subcultures can be found almost anywhere in the world and, from this aspect, it makes gay individual no different than other person. For example, the BDSM lifestyle is large in the straight culture however, it is also hugely popular in the gay culture to often with groups of individuals who devote their whole way of life to this. In essence however, many of the gay subcultures are no different to that of their straight counterparts the only difference being, the individuals who practice them, are gay.

Gay Subcultures – An Overview.

For many webmasters who currently work in the straight market their first attempt and even their second attempt at marketing to the gay lifestyle may fail however, many do not realize the simplest of rules when it comes to marketing products and services to gay individuals online, you need to be as, if not more, detailed and direct to gay surfers than straight, give them something they can find anywhere at anytime and the chances are they will not buy however, give them something that suits their tastes perfectly and you have a customer for life.

Article written by Lee

Hard Hitting – In Your Face – This Is Reality

Date: 2011.02.24 | Category: General | Response: 0

It started on terrestrial television some 5 years ago with the first episode of Big Brother, then it went from a house of captive stars to talent scouts looking to create a new pop sensation. From there we saw a variety of television series with ‘reality’ as the main focus.

It only follows suit that this popular marketing machine should hit the adult internet; and, it hit in a major way. And now, almost every major adult sponsor has one common type of site in their portfolio – a reality site.

However, one thing that many in the adult industry are not aware of is that the ‘reality’ type adult sites have been around for longer than what most realize. Before the live sex up-sells and chat rooms, Brandon Marley, a gay website owner, has had a site catering towards the gay reality niche – the premise of his site, as a gay male on the prowl, he goes to the street looking for straight guys to use as content; once he has them in the studio, he lets them work their magic and, inevitably, gets down to business, sometimes persuading the guys to have sex, sometimes, grossing them out whilst they up and flee the studio, all of this is caught on tape and published online.

Next is the web cam phenomenon. Reality at it’s utmost, watching live guys talk, strip, jerk off and discuss the most intimate desires in a chat room. The gay market flocks to reality like a moth to a flame. And surprisingly, much of the focus of ‘reality’ has been pointed to the straight adult audience, with a limited amount of gay orientated reality sites being launched.

That is until now, more and more programs and providers are coming up with reality to the gay market. The key to the on going success and growth of these sites is the, always allusive, original idea.

From M.I.L.F To D.I.L.F.

One of the popular types of reality site we saw explode was MILF (Moms I Like To Fuck). Spurred not only by the popular teenage movie American Pie, this type of reality hits a spot of desire within some surfers to days gone by where they had a secret crush on someone’s mom. Well if it’s possible that a straight man could have a crush on a mom, what about the young gay man having a crush on a dad?

“Well, if the straight markets can have MILF, why can’t the gay arena have DILF?’ asks Gary-Alan, owner of the new gay reality site DILF.com from http://www.studmoney.com.

The gay markets have been yelling they are looking for something different to sell. So rather than taking DILF to the straight adult reality markets DILF takes it’s unique flavor and gears it toward to gay market.

‘Reality sells! It is one of the freshest and highest converting niches yet. We see this from great sites like Chi Chi La Rue and Brandon Marley – two of my most favorite sites. I have been listening to webmaster for years. They are looking for something different not just in a reality sense but something that features older guys, not your typical young buff stud. I think when the idea to finally launch StudMoney came up, the first thing that was mentioned was DILF. So we’ve brought the two aspects together and given the gay market webmasters the opportunity to promote a reality site that will convert and, convert well on their traffic.” Alan tells us.

So What Are Reality Sites?

Reality sites cater to a specific target audience, those people who don’t want to see the usual porn stars that are found on almost every other site on the web. Instead, these sites offer exclusive real-life models that could next door neighbor’s sister, mother or, in the case of DILF, their father. Reality opens your site offerings, giving you the opportunity to retain surfers with frequent updates and story lines that will peak their interests. You get to set the standard of your entire site to promote not only the content but a familiarity with your core performers.

Starting Reality Site.

So how do you go about setting up a reality niche pay site? In all honesty, there is more involved than putting up a cookie-cutter site online.

First you need a concept. With as many niches available today you need something fresh. Mind you there are ideas to mimic but new sells. Once the ideas are down then you need to find content. This isn’t as easy as buying a standard CD, it has to be fresh and new so finding a good photographer to shoot exclusive custom content. Even if you decide you will shoot your own content, you will need to be sure to schedule fresh new shoots frequently. This is important with any type of site, but none more than reality.

Once you have the content aspect figured out, you need to work on designing your site. You may think that’s easy, but the regular cookie-cutter designs, that are so often seen across multiple sites, simply do not cut it. You should seriously give your site design as much consideration as you do you concept for the site itself. A unique approach to the overall layout and design the site and it the member’s area has an equal impact on your members retention rates as having unique content.

Reality Niche – Overview.

What it all comes down to is reality is here, and here to stay. From market to market, niche to niche the one thing we have seen on and offline is that audiences around the world are looking to satisfy the voyeur, the deviant or the simple curiosity that lurks just beneath the skin. So the next time your driving past the mini-mart or peak inside the dressing room at the department store, remember you’re not only in public places – you are probably walking through the next set for an upcoming reality site.

Article written by Lee

Networking – Not Just For Computers

Date: 2011.02.23 | Category: General, Promotion | Response: 0

Networking – Not Just For Computers.

“Networking” is a buzz word today. Everybody talks about it. Everybody hears about it. Everybody wants to do it more effectively. But why? Why do people network, and what do they hope to accomplish?

Primarily, networking is the process of meeting new people, either through a contact that you initiate, or through an introduction by a third party.

Networking allows you to meet, and establish a relationship with, people who may not have heard of you and your business through any other method.

For most professionals, networking is done to increase revenues. Sometimes new clients are found, sometimes suppliers and, sometimes new ways of doing things that increase your bottom line are found through networking.

When networking you should work towards these common goals:

To exchange business ideas.
To get better service.
To develop your business skills.
To potentially increase your revenues.
To establish long term friendships.

This means that networking is an essential part of building up strong business relationships. We need each other to buy from us, sell to us and, brainstorm with us in order to progress in our fields. In order for us to do these things we must give something back in return, its all about give and take.

we must be willing to hone our relationship building skills. We must be great listeners. We must be willing to give before we receive. We must get into networking mode in our own minds before we ask the same of others. This must be constant.

Through consistent contact with others, you will, instinctively start to put 2 and 2 together. When you begin speaking with someone your mind will automatically start searching the inner most recesses of your brain to remember people, places, even products, that will assist the person you are networking for and, at the same time, you will also be thinking of what they can do for you in return.

This Is Networking.

This is the state of mind you should be in whenever you are talking to someone in your industry, to get your mind in this state takes a while but, once you have focus and determination, you will immediately see how you can help others and, how they can benefit you in return whilst listening to them. this is the first step in getting them to help you.

Networking, as its name would suggest is WORK, hard work, the process is also a learned skill, its not something that we are all born with or, can all do. It can often be frustrating when you have a goal in mind but, your networking functions are not achieving that goal. All in all, networking is the building block of many a business venture, it can make and it can break you. Take some time to consider this fact the next time you are posting on a board or go to one of the tradeshows, you might just come away with more than you hoped for.

Article Written By Lee