Smart Networking for Moonlighting Entrepreneurs

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If you’re an entrepreneur who also has a day job and is building your side business on your lunch hour, nights and weekends then you’re a Moonlighting Entrepreneur.

What you need to know about your situation is that everything about you is different, especially the time you have to build and market your growing business.

Most entrepreneurs can go to networking events during the day and build coffee dates and meetups around their work schedule-as a Moonlighting Entrepreneur you’re already challenged by how much time you have to work on your business every day.

Traditional strategies to grow your business will need to be curved slightly to accommodate your different schedule and possibly the fact that you still need to be an “Undercover Entrepreneur” and can’t quite reveal to the world what you’re doing “on the side”.

You need to know creative ways to grow your business and then you need to find the time to squeeze them into your already busy day.

Because I have experience in this area (having done it myself) and have been mentoring Moonlight Entrepreneurs for the last few years I can tell you that once you start thinking outside of the box you’ll find network marketing won’t be nearly as challenging.

Not sure exactly how to do that? Let me share a ways you can go about it:

• Forums: There are many different online forums that you can join where you will find your niche. These are great places to go to answer questions, meet other people and update people about you and your business.
• LinkedIn Groups: If you haven’t spent any time on LinkedIn then you’re missing out. There are countless groups where people congregate. It’s another place that you can meet people and look for ways to collaborate and or refer to one another.
• Membership Groups: These can be a goldmine. You’ll find like minded people who are gathered together to support one another. Often you’ll develop long term friendships and connections with other people in the community.
• Facebook Groups: Similar to the other groups Facebook has groups that you can join to learn and network.
• Twitter Parties: These can be a wonderful place to meet and socialize with other people. They move fast but they can be a great time. Often they occur weekly or monthly. You can search for ones that might be a good fit for your business here at www.Tweeparties.com. Find ones you can join that happen in the evening.
• Live Events, Conferences and Expos: There are numerous events, conferences and expos every year. I’d recommend doing a Google search for ones that might have your target market. They typically occur over weekends which you can certainly attend even if you’re still working.
• Host your own Group, Party or Event: although these can be a lot of work you can start out small and develop them. Become known for something that others want to attend, speak at or contribute to.

Bottom line; networking is a necessary marketing strategy to incorporate in your business. When you know how to build it in around your busy work and life schedule and start doing it regularly then you’ll grow your business quickly and very soon be a full time entrepreneur.

What are some networking strategies you think can help the Moonlighting Entrepreneur? 

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Struggling to figure out how to market and grow your business as a Moonlighting Entrepreneur? Set up a Strategy Session to chat with Jeannie to learn how you can do it.