Social Business Success

One of the most popular pieces of advice today in finding a new job is networking.  The people that give that advice are 100% correct that networking is one of the best methods to land a new position.  However, there is one downfall with this advice.  In my experience the people that gave this advice didn’t explain how to network or what networking really is.  You see, many people attend “networking events”, collect business cards and once in a while contact a person they’ve met at a particular event.  In other words, people expect magical things to happen by just attending these events.  After a period of time the individual comes to the conclusion that networking doesn’t work.

Networking is meeting people, developing and maintaining relationships with those individuals that we wish to continue the relationship.  The relationship doesn’t happen over night.  If an individual has a relationship with someone, the odds of that person helping that person are very high.  Networking is helping people without expecting anything in return.  I live by this philosophy.  It’s also “all about them “ or all about the other person.  What this means is that the other person is important.  Find out how you can help that person by asking that person questions.  It has made me see networking in a whole new light.

When a person that develops a relationship with the philosophy of “how I can help this person”, then that individual understands what networking is all about.  Networking will then start to work for that person.  People want to develop relationships with people that want to help them.  Many times it’s who that person knows that can help that individual.

Developing relationships and being sincere that you really want to help someone are things that people leave out when they recommend people to network.  When people don’t know how to network properly they don’t see the results from their efforts.  So they get frustrated and discouraged when networking doesn’t work.

When meeting a person for the first time, you need to decide within the first 10-15 seconds if you want to develop a relationship with that person.  Networking is a lot like dating.  You need to decide if you want to develop a relationship with that person.

Networking is a skill that needs to be learned and always remember that networking is all about the other person.