Don’t network, make friends
The word “networking” is off-putting to some people. They imagine some guys or gals shaking their hand, smiling, and marking them down in their calling-card collection or cellphone list as merely additional plus points to tap in the future. Undeniably, there are people in the milieu we move around in that match this mold. But, truth be told, establishing relationships with people is a huge key to achieving more in your professional or personal life. And it’s likewise accurate to say that many individuals simply aren’t equipped with either innate or learned skills at swiftly creating reciprocally advantageous relationships with others. They either don’t have the social dexterity, see it as something that requires great effort, or fundamentally don’t see the bigger benefit.
Enter Keith Ferrazzi and his book Never Eat Alone, your ultimate guide to networking in a generally vigorous and communally valuable mode. The tome presents a much more caring take, one that essentially appeals to readers. It begins with the author’s narrative as a caddie in an affluent city close to where he grew up. As he carried golf clubs, he made a lot of observations: how country club members found each other jobs, invested time and money in one another’s ideas and helped each other’s kids get into the best schools, get the best internships and the best jobs. Ferrazi writes, “Before my eyes, I saw proof that success breeds success and, indeed, the rich do get richer.”
Poverty, he realized, wasn’t only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that can help you make more of yourself. Ferrazzi realized that to achieve what you want in life, it matters less how smart you are, how much innate talent you’re born with, or even where you came from and how much you started out with. What matters most is realizing you can’t get there alone. Here are some networking tips from the book to consider as you bring more power to your relationships.
• Find ways to make other people more successful. If you do something to make someone achieve greater success, they’re more likely to value your relationship with them, and the more relationships you have with value in them, the more valuable you become, not only to yourself, but to the world: your employers, your clients, and other stakeholders you deal with.
• Remaining true to yourself no matter whom you speak with is a must. Deliver your message in a tone and style that fit your audience best. Adjust your “Johari window,” described as the general tone and energy level, to the person you’re speaking with. You’re no doubt well aware that some people are naturally louder and more boisterous than others. Everyone has volumes, tones and speaking patterns they are most comfortable with. You can instantly make people feel more at ease if you consciously dial back or dial up your energy levels to match their own. When people feel that you are operating on the same frequency they are, they connect with you and feel more at ease.
• Set your “dreams with a deadline.” You can follow a three-step plan for setting goals. First, find your passion: what do you truly love to do? What would you enjoy doing for the rest of your life? Second, put those goals down on paper and flesh them out; and third, build a “personal board of directors” by finding ways to establish a connection with people in that field already.
• Reach out to others and build your network of contacts. It should start before you need anything from them. You can do several things to get started: join community groups that interest you, take leadership positions in hobby or professional groups that interest you, enroll in a class you like, become involved with an approved work project that enables you to come into contact with more people. Then, as you’re exposed to more people, gravitate towards the ones who are involved with the things you want to be doing.
• Don’t schmooze: have something to say, say it with meaning, and focus on establishing a few good connections than spending your time surfing the room. Don’t rely on gossip because it paints a picture of untrustworthiness. Be willing to give something away. Don’t treat those under you poorly. Be transparent — if you want to meet someone and are happy to meet them, say so. Don’t be too efficient — make genuine, individual connections. If you’re going to take the time to touch base with a contact, write to that person directly, and don’t just include them on a “copy all” email.
• Establish a prior connection before setting a meet-up. But sometimes necessity dictates you have to do it. Consider two things on how you can make this go a lot smoother. Try as best you can to find a connection to the person you’re calling — someone you both might know — and make it clear to them right off the bat why this call is valuable by doing the homework you should have done on the person and connecting it with whatever the purpose of your call is. Be efficient with your words and try to pique their interest; don’t ever drone on and on.
• Hook up with someone through a meal. If you’re eating alone, you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect with someone. It’s one of the reasons that you have to be careful balancing your brown-bag frugal style with the need to eat with certain people. Mix and match by inviting multiple people to eat with you from different parts of your social network, which can help build new connections and bring hidden ones to the forefront.
• Invite those who share what you’re passionate about. It can be your passion for sports, fashion, theater or cars. This could mean inviting them over for a meal if you’re passionate about cooking, or bringing them to a car show and annotating the latest car models. Whatever it is that gets your fire going, share it with those that you want to build a relationship with.
• Connect with “connectors.” These are individuals who have an incredibly large and strong personal network. These people are obviously great to have a connection to — headhunters, anyone remotely close to politics, public relations people, and journalists.
• Merge your contacts with others. It can expand your circle of contacts in a big way. Offer to exchange invites to events with someone whose circle you don’t know well — and who doesn’t know your circle well. This can provide a great opportunity for both of you to seriously expand your individual circles. Everyone wins.
• Make an impact on people in matters of health, wealth or children. Personal and financial health and the benefit of children are often direct keys to a person’s heart. If you are capable of doing something that helps a person in one of these areas, you’re often able to endear yourself to that person. You are also able to establish a really fantastic and deep connection that will last for a very long time.
• Strive in as many different areas as possible. Have connections in tons of different professions, social circles, and so on, and then make connections when needed between people who exist in completely different social universes. This makes you seem indispensable to both people that you’re connecting, as you’ve benefited both of them in a way that neither one was capable of doing without you.
• Adopt an interesting persona. No one wants to spend time around a boring person. Beyond the obvious of keeping up with current events and having a point of view on the issues of the day, you can ask seemingly stupid questions, always be open to learning something new and trying new things, take time out for vacations and spiritual growth, and never get discouraged if things don’t go well.
• Write, write and write some more. That should be your mantra. Have the “write stuff.” Be brief and to the point. The written word is an incredibly powerful communication tool, and the more you practice writing, the better you become.
• Move away from the generic approach if you want to get close to those who have decision-making power. Try a different route: get involved with political fundraisers, attend conferences, join nonprofit boards, and play some golf or any sport that provides networking opportunities, and allows you to establish some lifelong relationships with people that you’ve met in a group date.
• Stop right now if you ever begin to think that you’ve got it made. Never give in to hubris. Don’t get caught up in the moment and make a complete jerk of yourself by overselling who you are and what you have because of ego. Instead, practice strategic humility and realize that the connections you’ve already made are the really valuable ones, not the big one you’re hoping to make.
• Find mentors and mentees. Both are reversible processes. You should always be looking for people to mentor and help you, but you should also be looking for people whom you can help and mentor. This means that not only should you seek help from others, but you should also be willing to step forward and lead others when the time comes, and consistently do both.
• Accept the reality that there’s no rigid line between your private and public lives. Everyone you meet is, first and foremost, human. People have hopes, doubts, passions and insecurities. It is on this fundamentally human level that you can best connect with others in a way that fosters connections. You need only to look to the popularity of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook for business and a myriad of other online mediums to realize that the line between public and private lives is blurring at an incredible rate. People are in a world of unparalleled transparency — transparency that can intimidate others who have something to hide, and liberate those who are authentically themselves, regardless of who they are with.?
You do business with people you know and like. As such, connecting to people is one of the most important business and life skill sets you need to learn, imbibe and nurture?. “Those who are best at it don’t network — they make friends,” Ferrazi says.
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