It's a great word that describes some of the great benefits you get from networking with your eyes and ears open. In addition to the stuff you have planned you find opportunities and people that you never imagined.
I met someone new at a networking group last week who said "It was tough last year and we need some new customers". I asked how long he was prepared to give it and he said he might come once more to see if he got any business. I asked him why he thought that it was the people who committed for the long term that got results. He said "I suppose it's really about building relationships".
Exactly right. Networking is about building a route to market for the longer term through trusted relationships. To build a relationship you first need to connect and then regularly follow up on that original connection and build trust.
Turning up once or maybe twice is hardly enough to connect and it certainly does not build trust. In fact it often has the opposite effect on your brand.
At a meeting earlier this month people were talking about how difficult it is to keep track of all the interactions we now have both online and offline. Last month in my National Networker Column I wrote about the many different ways we have of keeping in touch with the advent of social networks and social media. Online networks give us a a really effective tool for supporting our offline business networking activities. As I have written before, though, they only do that, however, if we go about both activities strategically.
1. Get comfortable with how networking works 2. Develop a plan 3. Identify the people you already know, like & trust 4. Identify the offline networks to join 5. Show a genuine interest in other people 6. Always follow up contacts 7. Identify the online networks to join and start a blog 8. Make online contacts and build relationships first 9. Arrange contact meetings 10. Develop Networking Advocates
How can I make such a statement to you baby boomers? After all. Seth says: - I didn't set out to get you to quit your job - or to persuade you to become an entrepreneur - or merely to change the world.
Yet, he also says: ...fearful employees are in pain. They're in pain because they're overlooked, underpaid, laid off, and stressed out.”
“You weren't born to be a cog in the great industrial machine. You were trained to be a cog.” “ You were promised: Follow these instructions and you don't have to think”
Now I ask, who can he be speaking to other than baby boomers. Who has lived under this training longer than any other generations? All of our lives, we baby boomers have been “pushed to produce, to conform, and to consume”. That is why 77+ million of us are looking to end our work careers. That is why many of us are seeking an alternative to traditional retirement and searching for advice on how to start your baby boomer business. We don't want anymore “attendance based compensation”.
We want the choice to be indispensable and to make a difference. As consumers, employees, and business owners - we do not want to participate in the old model “of racing to make average stuff for average people in huge quantities”.
As baby boomer entrepreneurs, we are starting baby boomer businesses at an amazing clip. We are already half of all the self employed business owners in America. Baby boomer women are leading the way at business formation at about twice the rate of men.
Seth doesn't promise you a map. What he does provide is a compass to point you in the right direction. He does advise you to focus on the audience you choose. He advises you to listen to them to the exclusion of all others. He advises making these customers happy. “Let the other guys pound sand”.
Baby boomers, especially entrepreneurs...this one is for you!
The important thing is that you know what you want rather than network without any clear idea of what you want. That way as you build relationships and help others achieve their goals you can let them know exactly what you are looking for.
People new to networking will often look to 'network' with people from completely different businesses. Last week an IT provider said he was reluctant to attend an event because many of the other attendees were also 'in IT'. I asked one of these other people who he preferred to network with. He said, "Thats easy. Other people in IT services and support. They know what I'm talking about and we very rarely compete even though it may look like we do something similar. The opportunities for working together or referring each other far outweigh any competitive concerns."
The reality is that people in similar businesses can form relationships much quicker than with those in different fields.
As I wrote in As I wrote in 'Applying the 7 habits to your business networking' habit 6 is 'Synergise'. Look for synergies whenever you meet people and add them to your network. The value of future collaboration will exceed the sum of what each of you could achieve on your own.
According to Wikipedia a synergy is where different entities cooperate advantageously for a final outcome. Simply defined, it means that the effect of the whole is greater than the sum of the effects of the individual parts. Although the whole will be greater than each individual part, this is not the concept of synergy. If used in a business application it means that teamwork will produce an overall better result than if each person was working toward the same goal individually.
The third Monday of January every year is a public holiday in the United States to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King. One of his famous quotes is very apt with regard to success in business networking:
"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"
The most successful networkers are not looking for people to sell to. They are constantly looking out for opportunities to connect others to what they need. They build relationships by doing that with people who get to know, like, and trust them. As I said in 'How to make your follow up productive', it is the giving of opportunities to others that will produce opportunities for you as people reciprocate.
A couple of days ago in 'Why follow up is so important' I wrote about the importance of follow up in networking. You get to know people by spending time in conversation with them and others at regular networking group meetings. You get to know, like and trust them by following that up with One2One interactions.
You should treat that as an opportunity to really understand the other person rather than an opportunity to pitch. If you are not regularly finding yourself able to give referrals, connect people and share your knowledge then you need to be asking better questions. It is by getting to know, like, and trust people and giving them opportunities that will produce opportunities for you as people reciprocate.
I ran a business networking seminar this week when I asked 2 questions.
1. Do you agree that all things being equal people do business with and refer business to the people they know, like and trust?
2. Do you agree that all things being unequal people STILL do business with and refer business to the people they know like and trust?
The answer to both was a resounding yes, so I asked another.
"Why then do you spend most of your networking time getting to know lots of people a bit?"
You don't get to know, like and trust people by meeting once or twice. You get to know them by spending time in conversation with them and others at regular networking group meetings and by following that up with One2One interactions. That's follow up and you don't get to know, like and trust someone without it.
