Business Networking Simplified. Les Garnas

among the networking contacts you don’t know well, it is important to gather information about them. You need to learn all you can about your networking partners because that’s how you practice the give and take that networking requires for success. If you don’t know your networking partners well, you can take their help, but it is hard if not impossible to give, as you don’t understand the others’ priorities well enough to be useful to them. Doing your own homework before meeting with a new networking partner is essential to having a valuable face-to-face conversation. Once again, LinkedIn can be a valuable source of information. The “profile” section of any individual’s home page usually lists title, responsibilities, goals, background, education, associations, clubs, hobbies, connections, and more.

      Armed with this information, you can establish a fruitful relationship with your networking partner. Don’t misunderstand. This does not mean that in a face-to-face conversation you steer the conversation away from seeking information and insight from your future networking partner. It simply means you will be better prepared to suggest how you might work together effectively. In starting your exploratory conversation, you should be prepared to “model” the conversation you would like both of you to have.

      Using your intelligence gathering, highlight your own experience, skills and abilities most likely to complement your networking partner’s experience and possible interests. Spend no more than two or three minutes reviewing your information, then turn the conversation to your potential networking partner. The reason for setting a definite time limit for yourself is that it’s so easy to get carried away with your own story that you start to bore the other person. To guard against this, demonstrate to your networking partner that you are a good listener. Your partner will notice and appreciate this attribute of yours and find more value in supporting you because people who are truly good listeners are relatively rare.

      Also, having modeled a useful conversation, he/she is likely to use the guidelines you have revealed in highlighting her experiences. At the conclusion, be prepared to ask clarifying questions that would help uncover additional insight. Here, you are looking for a good fit between the two of you that would make networking together not only useful but productive. Highlight, if you can, what you bring to the networking relationship that would be useful to your partner, and what you yourself would like to achieve if your partner is able to help you. What you have done is to set the tone for next steps and what both parties could do to get off to a good networking start and lasting relationship.

      The next step is critical: Volunteer to help your networking partner with her networking priority—first. Look at it this way. Each of you could wait for the other to offer a networking contact first. A virtual standoff could mean that nothing might happen for quite some time. You both may be right in expecting the other person to make the first move, but to what useful end is waiting? My suggestion would be for you to make the first move to support your networking contact. After all, you have a plan for yourself (perhaps your networking partner doesn’t), you have short term and longer term priorities (they won’t happen until you make something happen), and you have a need (if you don’t have a need, why are you bothering to network?).

      The best time to start is right after the networking conversation where you established a clear picture of your networking contact’s needs and priorities and asked clarifying questions to create a visual picture of what she wants. End the conversation by suggesting next steps. Say something like this: “_______(name)______, now that I have a clear picture of what kinds of networking help would be useful to you, I will think over your needs and find ways to help you connect with______________(people/companies)__________ that would help launch you. Would that be helpful to you? Or would an alternative approach better fit your needs?” After discussion, end with something like: “I think I can accomplish this task within the next two weeks. I will give you a call on next steps to get you started with these networking contact(s). Is that O.K.?”

      The goal here is to be specific, which again is an opportunity for you to model how you would like your networking partner to support you in addition to a plan for your support of her. Making the first move and being specific demonstrates that you are serious and that you seek ways to make your relationship goal oriented.

      “More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.”

      –Peter Drucker, Social Ecologist

      Chapter 4

      HELPING

      PROFESSIONALS

      USE TIME WELL

      Professionals—doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants and others needing special qualifications to practice—face special challenges when it comes to networking. Traditionally, professionals have felt most comfortable interacting with their peers and may not have aggressively reached out to network with those outside their profession. But networking harder among your colleagues isn’t likely to keep you moving ahead in a highly competitive environment. If you want to be successful, you need to broaden the scope of your networking relationships beyond your friends in the profession.

      Broaden Your Contact Base

      The idea of broadening your contact base, however, might raise some critical issues for you related to standards and traditions in your field. What’s considered appropriate in your profession? Are there any restrictions on how and with whom you can network? Even though, in some professional environments—the legal profession for example—there were long-standing prohibitions against advertising and self-promotion, restrictions have largely disappeared. This has encouraged lawyers, doctors and others to try all manner of awareness-building to expand their practices. Many favor print media advertising and TV with the hope that business will roll in the door, thereby excusing them from having to make personal contact with decision-makers. Not so.

      Having worked for many years with top accounting and law firms that spent millions of dollars on media, I find that the main result has been merely to increase the public’s awareness of the firms. In the cluttered world of advertising, this is a good outcome. But it doesn’t bring business in the door—people do, through face-to-face contact. Although millions are spent every year trying to drive decision-makers to professional services, good old-fashioned word-of-mouth is the most successful way to build a practice. Think about it: If your company is faced with a legal threat, which option would you, as General Counsel, choose? (a) To follow up on an advertisement that says XYZ Law Firm LLC is the premier law firm for problems like yours? Or (b) ask an admired business acquaintance which firm he might recommend? And more importantly, you would likely quiz your contact as to why he would recommend the person/firm for such an assignment. Alternatively, would you choose simply a dentist who does dental implants? Or one who has a reputation for having done hundreds?

      Consumers or business consumers—we’re all savvy and sophisticated about what we want and, more importantly, how to get it. The clear message here is that as a professional you have to fit the message (your expertise and competence) to an identified problem. This only can happen by talking to people one-to-one so they can refer to you among their own peer groups, or buy from you. There are no quick fixes, so let’s take a look at some ways you can begin to expand your network.

      Work vs. Networking with Laypeople

      Reevaluate the rule that says my work comes first. Some professionals consistently avoid networking among laypeople by saying that they’ll network when their work is done—which for a busy professional is never! Just as you find time to attend professional association or society meetings to network among your colleagues, you can find time for other networking activities as well. Simply put your mind to it and get started.

      Here’s a place where the internet can help you. Once you have established a network of people you want to have frequent communications with (so they can refer you, refer one another, or exchange a “heads-up” regarding an opportunity, for example), you can develop a Google site that in effect