Part V

How to boost and utilise your personal network

Starting with hello is good manners, as well as being a strategy for getting a wider connection base, but it need not all be about business. Plenty of people are looking for Mr or Ms Right. You can apply the same strategies we’ve been using throughout this book to your personal life.

Read the following chapters to learn:

• how to turn acquaintances into friends

• about finding Mr or Ms Right

• how to join a voluntary organisation.

Chapter 14

Networking socially

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one!’

C.S. Lewis

Whatever your belief of where we originated from, people as a whole are sociable creatures; we were put on this earth to pair up, reproduce and build communities. It’s our natural role in life so it makes sense to talk about building relationships with others on a more personal level, not just for business.

There have been plenty of relationships forged purely for friendship and even romance, and what tickles me is that we predominantly feel quite happy chatting to strangers when we don’t have ‘the pressure’ of making a business connection on our shoulders but are able to simply be ourselves in a relaxed environment.

Think about the groups of friends you had when you were at school or university and how simple it was to make new friends, particularly as the group of friends you were acquainted with joined forces with others as they came along and in turn introduced their friends, and so on. Your wider friendship network grew steadily and, depending on whether or not you were dating at the time, your friends and acquaintances shifted back and forth as their relationships changed too.

Only this morning as I went to get my morning coffee from the café, a young man who was working on the building site next door chatted easily to me as we waited for our coffee to arrive. No pressure, just friendly banter about the cake I was quickly devouring. I didn’t feel like I was being chatted up; he was just being friendly. If I bump into him again, we’ll say hi — another person I’m now acquainted with who made for a pleasant morning.

How did you meet your life partner?

Once we have met our life partner, we stop looking — and for good reason. Unless you live in an environment where having multiple partners is acceptable, you’re asking for trouble if you don’t stop! But think about the process you went through to find your partner: the places you frequented, the chat-up lines you may have used, the number of frogs you had to kiss to find your prince/ss and how much money you probably spent wooing them, all in the name of finding a life partner.

Some people use a dating service. Some will go on blind dates set up by their friends. Some will meet at clubs where there’s a common interest and some will meet at their workplace, which is perhaps the most common place for a relationship to flourish. It seems quite a good spot for meeting your future partner is at the supermarket, as the signs of someone who is single are very easy to see by looking at their shopping basket.

The list is endless.

I met my husband at work, and if I hadn’t answered a newspaper job advertisement all those years ago (before the internet for sure), I wonder who I may have found as my life partner and how different my life could be now. But I doubt if I could be any happier.

Janette met her husband of 18 years on the ski slopes of Whakapapa in New Zealand, where she lives. I love the idea of the singles queue she refers to.

Opportunities come to us in all shapes and sizes and in both our business and our personal lives. Think back to how you met the love of your life. How did the story unfold?

Simon’s opportunity began with a serendipitous encounter.

Had Simon not made the effort to go to the bookstore, who knows whether he’d be married now.

Do parents have more friends?

I think it’s fair to say that most newly married couples go on to start a family and with that comes a whole new opportunity to meet other people through antenatal classes, playgroup, kindergarten, the school years and so on.

New friends are often made at antenatal classes because you all have something in common — you’re all having a baby, you’re all excited and you’re probably all a bit anxious about the prospect of parenthood too. Prospective first-time parents attend class, chitchat along the way, then possibly start to meet socially as the relationship blossoms, increasing their circle of friends. As time passes and the little one goes on to playgroup, another set of acquaintances is made with some people becoming close friends, and those relationships may go on through kindergarten and throughout the school and college years.

A pattern has formed, one that forms for many people, but not for everyone. If you’ve never had a family of your own, have you missed out on all of those friends? Does that make you lonely and isolated? Absolutely not. Despite not having had children myself, I certainly don’t feel that I’ve missed out on friends; I just have to make them in other places, places where people without children go.

While chatting outside the school gate with other parents each day was not really an option for me, I have more of my own time to spend going away at weekends to cycling and running events with my husband and competing alongside others with the same interests. Saying hello to a complete stranger while we both wait for our partners to come through the finish line is equally as enjoyable as the school gate conversations, but can you build a lasting friendship with so many casual encounters? Many of the people you see at such events may also frequent other similar events, so you’ll often meet them again at another finishing line or even in a coffee shop in the town where the event is being held, as has indeed happened to us many times.

Dave tells his story of a chance meeting on a plane that had a real impact on him and even helped him and his wife with their decision to try for a third child.

Talk about making you think! What a wonderful chance meeting and great story that shows not only the power of that particular chance conversation, but the senator’s wisdom too.

I too had a chance encounter while sitting next to someone. I sat next to a man called Charles at a celebratory dinner for the country’s top 200 businesses. We chatted for a good deal of the evening about work — he works for a printing and distribution company — and also about sporting activities we had in common, such as cycling and swimming. It was at this point that he mentioned he was going to attempt the harbour swim coming up at the weekend. I was also going to be there supporting a friend, but I thought no more about it.

Heading out of the car park on event day, guess who I bumped into again, this time dressed in a wetsuit? Charles. Had I not met him at that dinner event, we probably would never have noticed each other at the race.

We later connected on LinkedIn. I sent him a brief note to enquire if he had been happy with his time in the swimming race, and he called to thank me and to make a coffee appointment to chat about my business and how I can help him further. Even if it comes to nothing, if I ever have the need or know anyone with the need for volume printing and magazine distribution, I have his details and I can pass his name on.

Join a volunteer organisation

You may belong to an organisation such as Rotary or Lions, which you may have joined with the intention to network with other businesspeople, or to do some good and make new friends outside of the business arena. Many people join for both of these reasons. The type of people at each local branch across the globe will vary, but one thing they all have in common is that they’re friendly, welcoming and ready to take you on board to do some good.

Speaking as a Rotarian, although I have only been so for a couple of years, I have met many interesting, lighthearted people, ready to do good work for those in need, as well as a good smattering of corporate and private company heavy hitters. Having lunch sitting next to the CEO of one of the country’s top finance institutions, a partner in a big accountancy firm in town or a fellow Rotarian on a student exchange program from another country all add to a relaxed and informal way of acquainting yourself with people from all walks of life and building a solid foundation with them. Next week, I’ll be spending one evening packing food parcels with the local Salvation Army for those in need, and I have no idea who I’ll meet, but who cares; there will certainly be someone there I haven’t met yet and can build a relationship with.

Doing a little good is extremely rewarding, and even more so when you get a thank-you note from the organisation you’ve helped out.

Conor Cusack tells this amazing story.

Of course getting a thank-you note is not the reason to do some good for others, but it’s a lovely gesture nonetheless.

Turning acquaintances into friends

You have, no doubt, by now made some great connections and acquaintances, some of whom you may want to become friends with. And why not? You don’t have to limit yourself to collecting business connections; if there’s a spark of possible future friendship there, you must act on it. Here’s an example of my own.

Obviously you’re not going to be invited to dinner by everyone you meet, but if you think there’s a future friendship in the making, do something about it.

When you’ve met someone you’d like to form a friendship with, look out for:

• a common interest: something that you both enjoy doing

• whether you laugh and joke with each other easily

• whether you really hit it off together.

Sometimes you just pick up a great vibe about someone.

My husband is a keen cyclist. Striking up a conversation with the man sitting next to him on a recent flight, he discovered that the man, Barry, was also hooked on riding bikes. Not only that, but they lived only 15 minutes away from each other. After sharing the journey home together, they organised to go out riding together at the weekend. They are both in business, so what started out as being a pleasant chat could mean future business connections as well as a new cycling buddy.

Recently, I needed some out-of-the-box thinking for a project I was working on for a client, and I really didn’t have a clue where to find the information I needed. Google wasn’t any help in this instance, so I reached out to a bunch of total strangers on LinkedIn and sent them each a message through the paid premium account, InMail.

One lady, Barbara, came back with an offer to help. She sent an email around to connections she thought could be useful to me and copied me in. Not much happened from there, but she came back to me later on to find out if I’d received any response. I replied, ‘Not much, but thanks for trying. Looks like I’m on my own with this one.’ Because she didn’t want to see me struggle with it, she suggested that we arrange to meet up and discuss the project in more detail. As she lived about fours hours away by car, she said she would let me know when she was next coming my way.

Two weeks later, she came. I met her for a coffee and ran through my project again. Not only was she extremely helpful and very generous with her time, she also knew exactly who I needed to be put in contact with and promised to arrange this. You know how sometimes you get the feeling, ‘Wow, what a nice person. Aren’t they just awesome?’ That was Barbara. The conversation was easy, we had some things in common and I’m sure I’ll be seeing her again. The thing to do next time is to make the effort to nurture the beginnings of a friendship too — take some positive action and see what happens.

Get out on the golf course

So what about other social pastimes? Have you ever wondered what a game of golf can teach you about people? Quite a lot, when you know what to look for.

It’s common knowledge that many relationships are forged and deals are won on the golf course, and I always thought it was because the sport appealed to rich people who can afford it. But there are many more sporting activities that are far more costly than golf, such as car racing, yachting and horse racing. So what makes golf so special when it comes to firming relationships and closing deals?

It turns out that it’s really nothing to do with the expense of the sport, but the amount of time you get to spend with the other players and what you can observe during that time. When you’re out of your normal work surroundings, you tend to drop your guard, you behave a little differently and you relax a little. Well, so do the others.

Over the four or five hours it takes to hit a round of golf, there are a whole bunch of little giveaways that you can observe about your playing partners. Beware, though: it works both ways. Other players may be watching you, if they’re smart enough.

Here are some things to observe:

• Do they move the ball, perhaps when they’re in the rough or behind a tree?

• Do some of the players extend the truth a little when it comes to their handicap?

• Do they play out of turn or sequence?

• Do they blame the course, their irons, or the weather for their poor performance?

• Do they criticise other players in jest, laughing it off as they go?

Actually building the relationship is the most important aspect of having a game of golf with a new connection. It’s not about showing off and getting the highest score or acting the fool. So be remembered for the right reasons, but have some fun doing it.

~

Turning colleagues and business acquaintances into friends is an ideal way to get to know them better and develop a deeper connection. Getting together in a social setting allows everyone to drop their guard a little and for people’s real personalities to surface. Friends are a great asset to have around.