Welcome to another episode of the Marisa Raiders show where we are going to be exploring networking and growing your business through creating relationships with other women entrepreneurs. So let's get started, get motivated and inspired to take your business to the next level with a Marissa Raider show. This podcast was created for female entrepreneurs who want to manage the juggling act of successfully running a business and raising a family, hosted by mom, wife Ceo and breakthrough coach Marissa Rader. The show features topics such as effortless goal setting, forming successful habits, reducing stress levels, starting your own business and more. Take your business to new heights with Marissa's expertise on how to be an empowered woman in charge of her career by understanding how both sides can be equally important. You will learn how to make amazing things happen while also balancing home life. It is absolutely possible.

Listen, now, as Marissa helps give you the insight and guidance that you need to reach all your goals, check out our website at www dot marisa raider dot com or follow along on Instagram at Marissa Raider coaching for tips, tricks and motivation to unlock the secrets of success in all aspects of your life. Hey, hey, I'm so glad you're here for this episode today, last week we talked a little bit about balancing your purpose and your passion with your profits. And one of the suggestions that I gave was to network and get out there and meet other women who are going the direction that you want to go and have already been where you've been and learned from them. And so today, I really want to dive into how you do that. So the first thing is is that networking allows you access to professional opportunities that you may have never been presented with prior.

And a lot of times these opportunities are not publicly advertised. And by growing your network and having women in your corner, this is a way to tap into those hidden job markets and business prospects or projects that you can collaborate on and things like that. Getting yourself out there is the only way for people to know who you are, what you stand for, what you have to offer. And this needs to be a mutual network. You can't just expect to get, get, get from the people that you want to mentor you, you have to be able to give something to them in return. And so by growing your network and building those relationships, you are going to be given these opportunities, opportunities that you would never get if you just sat at home, lonely in your business. Another thing that networking provides you is a platform for learning from others experiences, gaining insights into different industries.

This can help you make informed decisions, avoid potential pitfalls and identify new trends in other people's fields that maybe you can bring into your own. These networks provide that trend based analytics for you. You can see what other people are doing. You don't want to copy them obviously, but how can you use what they're doing to influence what you're doing? And it gives you a jumping off point for talking to your target audience and saying, hey, I've been seeing this is this something you're interested in. Another thing that networking does for you. It helps build your confidence by putting yourself in situations where you need to present yourself and your ideas. It can be particularly beneficial for you if you're just starting out or looking to take the next step in your business. How are you ever supposed to gain confidence if you just stay in your comfortable zone, if you stay at home on your own, just doing what's comfortable.

You are restricting your growth, you need to step out, present yourself, present your ideas, be able to articulate them to other people so that you yourself can grow because your business can't grow if you aren't personally growing. Another thing that this does is fosters relationships with other professionals. These relationships can lead to partnerships, collaborations, mentorship opportunities. An example of this is, I have a small business that I absolutely love supporting. They are a clothing boutique. I just, I love shopping there and I love what they're about. I love the owner and every year they do a fashion show. So they were looking for models for their fashion show and I was like, I'll help you out. That would be awesome. It's fun. It's something new. I put myself out there. Not only did I enjoy the day but guess what? I met my very first affiliate marketing partner at that fashion show.

So nine months later, I reached out to her and said, hey, I'm looking for some affiliate marketers to help me get my products out there. I wanna try it, see how it works for me and my business. Would you like to be my guinea pig for this? And she said, absolutely. And that's how that's been born. I would have never had that relationship built with this woman if I hadn't stepped out of my comfort zone and increased my visibility in a different realm. This did not benefit my product based business whatsoever upfront. But what it did was it gave me a network to work with within my business later on. Something else that regular networking can improve. Move on for you is your communication skills, engaging in meaningful conversations with diverse groups of people is bound to help you improve your communication.

How do you sell your products? How do you get your business out there, you have to be able to communicate and the more you do it, the better you get at it and the more comfortable you'll be, it also is going to push you out of your comfort zone and lead to personal growth and development, which if you're listening to this podcast, I know it's important to you because that's part of one of the values that my ideal client has. And then the last thing here is that networking allows you to create, enhance your personal brand, making yourself stand out in an industry and allow you to share your resources and referrals with each other and just really optimizes your business growth and success. So if you listen to last week's episode and you were like, OK, I see you, you keep talking about this networking and getting myself out there, start small, take these things that I've mentioned in this episode and take one of them and implement it.

What can you do today to help strengthen your network so that you can have optimal growth. And before I end this episode, I do want to invite all of you to the Woman to Woman conference on September 9th. It's at Calico Sky Vineyard and Winery in Inwood Iowa. This event is a fantastic opportunity for you to learn network and grow alongside other like-minded women in business. And if you don't live in Northwest Iowa, I want you to know that we have people attending from as far away currently as Omaha in Minneapolis and into South Dakota. Uh So right now we have attendees that are coming from Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska, which is amazing and we would love to see you there too. So head to the show notes, check it out, get your ticket and mark your calendar down for September 9th because I can't wait to meet you in person And until then I'm gonna be here cheering you on.

Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Marissa Raider Show. Our goal here is to support and encourage female entrepreneurship along with managing the everyday chaos. Life throws our way. We strive to help women who want to take their lives and business aspirations to the next level and know that takes focus, dedication and hard work to get there for more great content for Marissa. Be sure to check out her website www dot Marissa Raider dot com or follow her on Instagram at Marissa Raider coaching. See you next time on the Marissa Raider Show.