The story goes like this; after a typical all night party, while I was lazing around on a Saturday noon, I got a call from my mom. Like all mothers she first inquired if I was done with lunch, and then she said, “Mr X (a far off cousin I think so) is in town, here is his number and have a word with him immediately.” Like every other spoilt son my first reaction to it was of irritation, I barely knew this person and now I have been asked to strike a friendly verbal chord on a Saturday when one can rather just kick his socks off, lay back and relax at home.
You must have heard many people say, that they have acquired various skills from their mentors, colleagues, bosses, role models and Godfathers or even their Dad. But I am one among the few people who can proudly say that I have acquired a great skill from my Mom. Mind you, this skill is not in the mannerisms genre, but it is a skill that has helped me a great deal in my business. The very skill I am talking about is networking. Yes, she has been the role model for me, and taught me networking even before I got my first sales assignment.
But just to make things clear neither am I a management guru or an influencer but just a guy putting his thoughts together.
Do drop in a comment below and let us know about how did it start for you and who was your guide to networking.
Following are the 3 networking skills I would like to share:
Crowd Networking:
As I grew up, I was always dragged to social gatherings like birthday parties, marriages, and other functions which was evidently free. The aim here for mom was to introduce me to everyone and for me was to wear a smile and my best behavior. I mention that they were free, since I am comparing those functions to our business conferences and events. In the corporate world, you pay big $$$$ to attend almost every event, collect pass cards and then finally attend it.
At conferences and events your main motive is either scavenge for prospective sellers and some for prospective buyers. But once you have attended couple of conferences you would have actually made a social group of peers from different organizations or your competitors with whom you will end up shooting down couple of beers after the show. You never know when a seller might become a buyer.
Be In Constant Touch:
One thing I noticed Mom doing often is; stay in touch with almost everyone she knew, she would email them, call them often, send them postcards and even visit them every once in a while. I remember this well since mom pushed me to do a lot of the getting in touch bit, she would make me answer the calls or make me draft the mails.
All of that did pay off, when I launched my own venture. Even before I had my business legally registered I had 3 closed business deals in hand. All the 3 deals were businesses from my mom’s circle. This is one of the most important trait not just for sales and marketing folks but holds true for majority of profession.
How do we manage our network and how we stay connected with them? Platforms like, LinkedIn groups, WhatsApp, Facebook and more come to rescue along with the old school medium of email and phone. I personally have witnessed the power of constant personal 1 to 1 communication and constantly strive to maintain the same. Always return that phone call you missed or respond to that one pending mail. Think what if it was you who was on the other end, this might help to motivate oneself.
Help Others, It Comes Back:
Even after these many years, people remember mom for the enormous help she has provided in her medical field proactively and in return they have given her abundance blessings and huge favors in times of need.
In the big fast corporate world where nothing comes free, how can we manage to get something out of people? It’s as simple as helping others, and there will be a favor round the corner ready to be returned. Now the favor could be a reference, information, opportunity and so on.
There are plenty of chances we get while growing up to build network, whether we proactively recognize and take it up is totally up to us.
Stated so, I guess most of us would have darned our networking hats in:
Back In College:
Final year of college is when one starts feeling the heat of job prospecting. When one friend after the other of yours is getting recruited you will realize that it’s time for you to get in touch with people who can help you find a job. You can dig out a list of people from the alumni meet who could be of some help, or run through all your social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Your First Job:
Typically if it’s a sales and marketing one, you see your colleagues out there gathering visiting cards, on the phone building rapport, sending out LinkedIn requests and then your Boss enlightens you with the networking Gyaan. For example Jay Singh, my business partner and an accomplished sales consultant always tells this one line to all the new joiners, “People Buy People First, So Sell Yourself”.
The Networking Accelerator:
If you have been bitten by chain or multilevel marketing you will be able to relate with me.Just the way LinkedIn has the 3rd degree connections, multilevel networking can take it up to the 10th degree. But yeah we need to be careful here not to exploit, it can easily back fire.
As Richard Branson rightly put it,
Succeeding in business is all about making connections.
Has your business networking experience been like mine or maybe more interesting? Post a comment below and share with us, how did your networking journey start and who was your networking guru.
