Who You Know

I’m not a power pusher. I don’t think I ever will be. My desire not to be made it hard for me to grasp a concept about networking. While it is NOT all in who you know, sometimes, who you know can make a difference to your business.

If you know the person who is on the end of the phone when someone calls an organization and asks who can do what you do, you might get a referral.

If you know the person who leads a particular organization, they may think of you when they need a speaker, or a service.

If you know someone who knows a lot of people who make decisions, they may mention you when the topic changes to something that might benefit you.

Now, the real catch to this is, you never quite KNOW who the “right” people are! You may think that knowing the mayor could help you. But if you are a little guy, the mayor really doesn’t give a rip about you, and it will be a long hard road to make any headway there. On the other hand, if you know the mayor’s secretary, you may actually get further, faster!

One of our students is a pretty ordinary person. Very nice – an easy person to love. Since she has been in our class, we hear her name regularly, and she refers people to us. She is not someone whom anyone would single out as being a person of power. But she knows people, and they respect her because they know she is sincere and good. We’ve met the mayor, and we’ve met many people in positions of power. Some of them remember us, most do not. Someone like our student though, is someone worth knowing for many reasons.

Get to know everyone that you have the chance to network with. You never know which one is going to be someone who helps you in ways you did not anticipate. Don’t USE people – develop good, helpful relationships with them. Our student recommends us in part because while we were teaching her, we went out of our way to help her when things were difficult for her. So it was about kindness and friendship first. The benefit came unexpectedly many months later.

So go… and GET to know…