Network! Network! Network!

You've heard it all before, leverage your network and grow your business. It sounds simple on the surface but the rules have changed in the last few years. Emerging research shows what we've known all along,  people aren't interested in the hard sell.  Instead the trend now is to form strategic partnerships as a means to grow your business, or as David Teten and Scott Allen put it,

"For the business development professional, though, the relationship is an end, not just a means, i.e., that signed contract and joint press release mean that you, individually, have accomplished something. You continue to work with that partner to achieve other objectives for your business, but the relationship itself is your primary objective."