Financial Times Guide to Business Networking, The

Heather helps professionals and firms become the Go-To-Expert. Unusually for someone with an Engineering Degree, she accidentally became a writer and used her knowledge on social media to write the current best-selling and award-winning book on networking, The FT Guide To Business Networking. (75 five star reviews on Amazon) People frequently talk about Heather as someone who really knows her stuff - which may be the reason she has, over the last decade, worked with over 100 partners, coached and trained over 1000 professionals at every level of the UK's most ambitious professional practices. Recently referred to as 'one of the UK's most influential 'tweeters'', the UK's 'networking queen' and "Twitter royalty", Heather has built a very large network online, with over 9500 Twitter followers in the last 3 years. She blogs on the subject of referral generation using networking and social media for professional services, and other issues involving partners who want to grow their practice. Heather, ACC CIPD MEng (oxon) Hons, is a graduate from Oxford University in Engineering Science. (This may explain the spelling and grammatical errors which her editor is always having to remove from her manuscripts!) Her early career was in supply chain management, working for Procter & Gamble and Tesco. Before, she took the plunge into business ownership, she spent five years working for BDO LLP, a UK top 6 accountancy practice. She is an associate credentialled coach with the ICF, a chartered manager with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. In her spare time, she is often found perfecting the perfect gluten and dairy free lemon drizzle cake, as well as scootering around flitwick with her two young children. Heather can be found blogging at: * Joined up networking - http://www.joinedupnetworking.com * How to make partner and still have a life - http://www.howtomakepartner.com * Partnership potential - http://www.partnershippotential.co.uk * venture-Now - http://www.venture-now.com

• About the author Acknowledgements Introduction  Part 1  The joined-up approach to business networking1 Why network? 2 How to create opportunities via networking 3 Behave like a great networker  Part 2  Online and face-to-face networking options explored4 Face-to-face options 5 Online networking options 6 Blogging  Part 3  Essential networking skills for the joined-up networker7 An introduction to the FITTERTM process for successful networking 8 Making the right first impression 9 How to keep the conversation going 10   How to work a room 11   How to ask for referrals and introductions 12   How to build your own community  13   International networking  Part 4  Putting your joined-up approach to networking into action14   Building your own successful joined-up networking strategy  15   Writing your joined-up networking plan 16   How to fit it all in 17   A final word about networking  Appendix 1: Useful Financial Times articlesGlossary Further resources Index