Perform at a higher level by connecting with other coaches, consultants and small business owners.

As a Digital Marketer, I often feel like I work in a vacuum. Generally, I work alone, which means I don’t have a team around me to celebrate with. It also means I don’t have as many opportunities to network, which makes it challenging to grow my business.

But I’ve learnt how to overcome that challenge. Here in this podcast are some of the steps and actions you can take to use networking to grow your freelance business.

This isolation can be tough on us. If we have a bad day, it can sometimes be hard to drag ourselves up out of the fog. If we feel lost, we can’t push our chairs back and chat with the person in the cubicle next to us.

Beyond our daily challenges, we also face longer-term struggles when we work alone. For example, at the beginning of the year, we might have set some ambitious goals and created a plan to help us achieve them. But, being alone, there is nobody around to keep us accountable.

In other words, building your coaching, consulting and small business can be hard when you work alone.

That’s why the people that network have an advantage. They are getting to know each other. They are finding out that others share the exact same challenges.

When everyone goes home, some of them will keep in touch with the people they have met while networking. Maybe they’ll form a private group on Facebook, so they can keep the conversation going.

And if they create small groups and keep in touch, they’ll be giving themselves a big advantage.

They won’t be isolated anymore.

They will have people they can reach out to when they are having a bad week or bad day.

They will have people they can celebrate with when they have a really good day. And they will have people around them who can help them stick to their most ambitious plans for the future.

My advice?

Get out to a conference at least once a year and make friends with a few other Coaches, consultants or small businesses. If you can’t do that, then make friends online and create a small group of fellow freelancers.

Either way, you’ll perform at a higher level if you are not alone.