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.
