By now, you should be feeling confident that you can influence the people around you. Building up your influence further means making opportunities to give, and in Chapter 8 you saw a five-step process for creating and strengthening your “reciprocation economy”. This chapter is about having more people whom you can influence. It will focus on steps 1 (how you can build your network) and 5 (how you can maintain and extend your network). In doing so, we will introduce five key attributes you need to cultivate in yourself – patience, courage, curiosity, enthusiasm and commitment.
How to build a network
The essential personal attribute for building a network is patience. We need to build our networks one person at a time. Any attempt to do otherwise will leave you with weak connections that will be of no use to you. You will have no influence over people with whom you do not have a personal connection so, unless you think of networking as a form of stamp-collecting where numbers have a value, this approach will waste your time.
Be wary of people who claim many hundreds of contacts. Unless networking is fundamentally their business and they are making real time for those people, they will be merely names on a list.
Where to build a network
You can build your network anywhere: everyone is interesting and everyone may one day be a useful contact. There are, however, some excellent places to start.
Everyone is interesting, so make a point of getting to know younger people, more junior people and people at the starts of their careers. Just because they don’t have seniority or experience, it is unwise to think of them as being uninteresting or of little value to you. You have no way of knowing how their future and their career may progress. If you take an active interest in people at the start of their career, or at a low point, then as they rise, so does the value of their friendship. Remember that networking is like investing.
Here are four places where you can build your network.
At work
The best way to extend your network is to volunteer for discretionary activities that will give you a chance to meet and work with new people. If that is not an option, then make good use of times when you can meet people you don’t normally speak with – at the starts and ends of breaks, at starts and ends of the day, and when you get refreshments.
At play
Social groups and sports clubs are great opportunities to build a network of people with different backgrounds and jobs to yours. If you are in a sports club that competes against other clubs, look for the chance to meet some of your competitors – this will open your net even wider. Voluntary activities like fundraising, caring or environmental groups usually attract a particularly diverse range of participants. Some of them will seem to have little in common with you, so they may well add something new to your network. That quiet old gent who says little could once have worked with just the people you would love to speak with. If you don’t start a conversation with him, you’ll never know that; nor that he meets them all once a month.
On the margins
There are a range of activities that feel a bit like work and a bit like play. Whether it is training, trade association meetings, exhibitions, conferences or meetings of professional bodies, these activities are often designed to facilitate networking. Do not waste these opportunities.
On the web
In Chapter 8 there is a set of examples of websites that can help you with your networking. Online networking takes time and care. Approach this as any other networking opportunity: with patience. Choose which services to use, learn about them and start slowly, building up your skill and expertise. Remember that your objective should not be to build a big number of contacts but to enhance existing networks and use them to create some more high-quality links.
How to build a network
Meeting people and talking with them is only the start of building your network. There are two further things to do: you must remember them and you must make yourself memorable to them.
Remember them
Not only is it important to remember names; you must also remember details. Lots of software companies offer clever solutions to recording the facts about your contacts and, of course, there is always a good old notebook. Spend time trying out a few different systems before deciding which one is for you. Once you have chosen, use it well. It is better to choose something simpler and adapt it to your needs than to go for a complex system that you will find a chore to use and will therefore not make good use of.
Make yourself memorable
Once you have made contact, look for opportunities to refresh that contact. Offer help or do small favours, like sending links to interesting and relevant web resources. A few calls or emails early on will cement your relationship and help you to establish whether it will be a close one early on, or part of your wider network.
How to make use of networking opportunities
Networking is one of those activities that feature frequently in people’s list of least favourite things to do. The idea of walking into a room full of strangers and starting a conversation with one of them fills many of us with dread. Here is the key: they are strangers. So if the worst happens and you don’t strike a rapport, then you need never see them again. So what is there to lose?
However, to really go for it, there are three key attributes for this, the hardest part of networking: courage, curiosity and enthusiasm.
Courage
It really does take courage to start a conversation with a stranger, so have pity on all those people in the room who are scared to approach you. Be kind to them. Make it easy for them by going to them. Now be the one to break the ice and say “hello”. There is a simple four-step process which sounds insultingly obvious. At the risk of insulting you:
- Gap. Wait for a gap when people are not talking – or, better still, approach someone who is on their own.
- Smile. It helps to look like you are pleased to meet them and a smile will break the ice. You will look more confident and likeable and will put the other person at their ease.
- Greet. Rapport building starts with a friendly greeting. The exchange of a formality will put both of you at your ease because we all know the format.
- Name. Once you have exchanged greetings, introduce yourself. Offer your name and your hand. The secret to a good handshake is to adapt it to the other person: firm, but not too firm, with your hand approaching theirs, aligned vertically with your thumb up.
Have a badge made up. Get yourself a smart name badge with your name in clear and easy-to-read type. This will make you more memorable and take away other people’s fear of forgetting your name – and therefore make you more appealing to speak to than what’s-their-name-in-blue-over-there.
Curiosity
The best tip for how to network well in a room full of new people is to be curious. Ask yourself: “What can I learn from each of these people?” If you assume that each person in that room has some interesting information for you, whether it’s a great story, a fascinating fact, or a shared passion, you will not only make better company and a better companion, you will learn more too.
There are three things to do with each person you meet: ask them questions, listen attentively to their answers, and take an interest in what they are saying. If you let me talk about me, two things happen: first, you learn a lot more than if you talk about yourself; and, second, I will think you an excellent conversationalist. After all, you are talking about my favourite subject; we all like to talk about ourselves.
Listen in particular for opportunities to offer me help or to put me in touch with someone.
Enthusiasm
Once you get talking with me, it can be tempting to stay talking with me. The hardest part is breaking the ice. The value of a networking opportunity is in meeting a range of people, so after around ten minutes, it is time to move on. If there is more for us to talk about, then we can meet up again, and further strengthen our link. A good way to politely move on is to introduce me to somebody else in the room, whom you have met. Once I get talking with them, you can move on. If I find them to be interesting, then I will mentally log the favour you have done me and you will have made your first deposit in our shared reciprocation economy.
At various points in the event, create a moment to consolidate your memory of what you have learned about me. For most people, that means making notes. Use your notebook, or the back of the business card I have given you.
Maintain and extend your network
For maintaining and extending your network, the key attitude is commitment.
Stay in touch
Make time to stay in touch with each person in your network. For many, this need only be once every three to six months. The less close they are, the more likely you are to lose your ability to influence them if you stay out of contact for too long. Use the phone, cards or emails, or, if you have invested the time in connecting with them through one or more web-based services, these can help enormously.
From time to time, look for an opportunity to meet up. If you are visiting their area and can free up half an hour for a drink or a coffee, then drop them a line and suggest it. Even if they cannot make it, the invitation shows you are willing to stay in touch and interested enough in them to offer some of your time to see them.
Introduce people
Don’t just wait to be asked for a contact. When you meet someone new who may have an overlapping interest with someone you already know, drop them both a line suggesting they may have something in common. Then leave it with them either to pursue it or not. The quality and relevance of the connections that you offer people will dictate the value they attach to them, so this stage will grow slowly as your network grows.
And so we come full circle: you need patience.
- Build your network one person at a time, taking every opportunity to speak to new people and add them to your contact list.
- At events where you have the chance to meet lots of new people, summon up your courage and introduce yourself. Take an interest in them and you will learn lots about them and make them feel at ease.
- Stay committed to each person in your network and look for ways to stay in touch, contacting each person at least once a year.