How to leverage training associations and memberships to assist with business development

If you are a member of a training association, it makes sense for you to maximize the return on the time and money you’ve invested in the organization. There is educational value as well as peer support when you participate in these associations. But it is also important to leverage them to develop new business for you as a contract trainer.

Your success depends on establishing relationships that can lead to business. One way to do that is through strategic networking with your professional peers.

Trying to get new business through a group of people that do similar work as you and who may even compete with you for business may seem illogical. But the truth is that the real business development value of peer-to-peer networking is that it indirectly leads to referrals and opens the door to strategic alliances. For example, an opportunity may arise when a fellow trainer learns about a project she can’t handle because of previous commitments and so she passes along that opportunity to you. Or a large training initiative requires multiple contract trainers, and the only way you can get the business is to align yourself with your peers and go for it as a team.

These opportunities will be closed to you unless you build strong relationships with your peers. But remember, relationships are all about giving and receiving; business is built when the relationship is mutually beneficial.