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When I ask successful service business owners to name their most important marketing strategy, networking is always high on the list.

In fact, it's hard these days to find a successful service business where the owners, partners, or senior executives are NOT continually involved in networking.

I believe networking is vital to marketing service businesses. Most service business owners instinctively know the importance of meeting people face-to-face and getting known.

Yet many either think it is something they personally can't do effectively (mainly because they are unsure how to go about it, or they are just plain shy) - or at the other extreme, they are so overtly promotional in their approach they turn people off.

You may have experienced one or both of the two types of ineffective networker:

1. Someone who is unable to make proper contact, open a conversation, develop rapport, or follow up. They attend a networking function, but talk mostly to their friends and colleagues. On the few occasions they exchange business cards with someone, nothing comes of it.

2. Someone so focussed on themselves, their business, and what they do, that you might be excused for thinking you had attended some "hard-sell" sales presentation by mistake. All they talk about is themselves and what they sell. It's plain they see you mainly as a sales prospect.

Of course, effective networking is not about being promotional. Nor does it necessarily require an extrovert personality (although many effective networkers are extroverts).

Some people are better at it than others.
These are the kind of people who immediately make you feel welcome and who are genuinely interested in you.

Just a few have achieved what I call Master Networker status. They have developed their networking to the point where it is generating a continuous stream of referrals - not just for their own business, but for other people they know - and they know lots of people.

Some Master Networkers appear born to network, some got there by trial and error, some by learning from others. But all share the same philosophical approach - an attitude which turns conventional thinking on its head.

Instead of "WIIFM" (what's in it for me), their attitude is always What's In It For Them - "them" meaning the people they meet when they network. And they are always networking.

Instead of pitching who they are and what they do, they seem to revel in bringing people together. This includes people who can do business together as supplier and customer, people who can combine their talents or capabilities in a strategic partnership, and people who can assist a worthy cause they support.

I believe we can learn a lot from these Master Networkers. One of them is Debra Bell, the Her Business Magazine "Networker of the Year" (2004). She has a passion for sharing her networking strategies as a public speaker and workshop facilitator (see www.debbell.co.nz ).

When I heard of Debra's award I called to congratulate her and ask if I might pick up some useful advice for my clients. But I've been stunned by what has resulted (another hallmark of the Master Networker is their generosity with their time, knowledge, and advice).