Networking grows your income. Love it or hate it—it works. It’s about initiating, building, and maintaining relationships.
Your network is the group of people you know who like you, trust you, hire you, and send their friends and family to you. Networking is about connection and caring. Networking is about compassion and commitment. Networking is about knowing, understanding, communicating, and demonstrating that what you do and say is coming from a place of concern. Networking is about sharing, revealing, and being real.
Networking is about making friends, keeping friends, and being important to one another. Networking is community.
Networking is not:
- selling,
- connecting on Facebook or LinkedIn,
- attending networking events at the Chamber or BNI unless that’s fun for you,
- trying to meet every single person at the event you didn’t want to attend,
- talking about yourself,
- talking to salespeople at networking functions,
- throwing business cards at people as you make eye contact with the next person at which you intend to throw a card,
- e-mailing the same article to 20 lawyers on “your list,” or
- having lunch and never calling again.
Networking is about creating relationships with people who are a good fit for you and for whom you can be a good fit. Networking is about building those relationships over time so trust grows. Networking is about learning what it is that other people need to fulfill their dreams and revealing what you need as well. Networking is about helping one another make those dreams come true.
Of course, now that we’re close, I’d like to tell you about my course Networking 101. It’s a step-by-step plan for identifying people to connect with and then building connections. If you’d prefer, please check out my premium membership program. It includes Networking 101 plus new courses and materials each week.
