It’s NOT Who You Know
My recent trip to the UK has me thinking about networking. I’ve never really liked the term, it makes pictures of strangers and stress in my head. So I think in terms of meeting people instead.
We live and interact with people. People help, support, and reach out. They interfere, compete, and ignore. Relationships with people can make the road to our dreams easier and the load on shoulders lighter. They can also thwart our plans and fill our heads with dust.
People who know where we want to go and how hard we’re working to get there can be a most powerful force. Love, friendship, camaraderie, influence, credibility, trust, authenticity all add up to relationships.
Every business is relationships and relationships are every one’s business.
When Fewer Is More
A living network is more than a list of contacts or friends that we’ve exchanged cursory messages with. A true network is people who know us and people we trust with our reputation. If we choose them well, our network of influencers expands our knowledge and our reach exponentially further and deeper simultaneously.
Networks like that take time to build and require attention. Two main qualities describe a network that is remarkably powerful.
- A remarkably powerful network is limited in size. Small is flexible and makes it easy to stay closely connected.
- A remarkably powerful network is varied in experience and expertise, but in agreement on high standards of quality in all things.
You might have heard “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”
That’s not exactly true.
Six Steps to a Remarkably Powerful, Personal Network
A living network can open doors and make connections to people we only wish we knew. Follow these six steps to build and care for a living network that will powerfully support you as you move forward in your personal and professional life.
- Know what you know and know its value. What you know is important. Don’t overvalue it. Don’t undervalue it. Simply understand how common or rare your knowledge and your unique skill set are. Know where they are useful and think through who might be delighted to find someone who does what you do.
- Build relationships not an address book. Relationships grow in value and mature with age. They also require time and attention to do so. Choose people you would bet your reputation on — people who share your standards and have similar goals. People who set the bar where you do will connect to other people you’ll want to know.
- It’s about who knows what you know (and who knows what your skills are.) Learn to explain your expertise easily to people who have influence. Influencers naturally talk about folks who are great at what they do. Influencers get asked for recommendations. If no one knows what you do well, it won’t matter who knows you.
- Be the first to offer help. Be interested in everyone you meet. Ask questions, listen actively, and be first to offer a favor without strings. People remember sincere curiosity and true generosity, especially from someone they’ve just met. Every generous act is an opportunity to share your expertise with those who might help you. Do it unconditionally and they’ll remember both the work and you.
- Watch for and welcome every wise teacher you encounter. Wisdom and experience are a prize. True teachers show themselves by offering advice, expecting nothing in return. Mentors who come your way, offering experience and connections, see something in you. Let them help you discover what that is and what it could be if you let it grow.
- Take every opportunity to reach out and to stay connected. Know that listening and speaking with friends is how we keep their interests in our hearts and minds. Stay interested in them and most of them will stay interested in you.
Keeping an eye toward reality and respect is how to develop a remarkably powerful network. This relational group will be a much smaller subset of the network of folks that you know. Still, as they say, we reap what we sow. A network built from relationships that are carefully tended is likely to become a remarkable group of lifelong friends and colleagues.
With a powerful personal network, it seems so much easier to become all our potential will allow.
Sometimes fewer is also more. Are you looking for a few good connections?
Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!
I like your “meeting people” view a lot better than networking. It’s closer to what I imagine it should be about. Loved your 6 steps! Some of them I did without realizing, some of them happened to me (mentors and people offering to help) and I will be forever thankful. In the end it’s not rocket science, it just takes time, dedication and a genuine pleasure in meeting new people, hearing their stories, making them your friends and learning more from them, every day. But it sounds so much better the way you put it into words 🙂
Hi Alina!
It’s always about the people — take care of the people and what they need . . . that takes care of the rest. Quality people bring the best out of each other. We shine brighter in each other’s presence. 🙂
Excellent post!
I truly believe that a personal network of genuinely interested people will always weigh more than a huge superficial network of “WIIFMers”.
Hi Liz
Thanks for the 6 points. I so like your perspective on fewer being more. When I was younger I was up for the big events, for meeting and greeting lots of movers and shakers. But now, I just don’t have it in me, either time wise or spiritually, to seek out so many. And when I think back over the course of my career, and life in general, a few mentors and teachers are the ones who made the most difference.
Lisa
Brilliantly put! What you say about networks matches with what I learnt from my years working in data communications. It is true, the best networks were always the small ones, made up of strong, reliable connections, not temporary hook ups. Interesting how what is true for computer networks holds true for social networks.
In the age of Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn, it is all to easy to start thinking of the network as numbers. Line items in a database or an item count. But, as you so eloquently say, the true power of the network is not in the nodes, it is in the connections – The quality, not the quantity – and that comes from investing and giving.
Excellent points Liz; I think you help make it clear how you should go about networking in a productive way. Ironically, it’s probably the total opposite of direct marketing (no call to action right from the get go), but probably the most helpful thing if you do want to get into direct marketing…
Sphunn it!
Hi Lisa,
Your thoughts remind me of how once I wanted so many to report to me. I thought that would be wonderful . . . now I think the perfect job is one in which I am only responsible for myself. 🙂
Fewer great people whom I can care for are certainly more. 🙂
Hi Towanda,
Welcome!
I’ve had the same experience . . . it’s been a few that have made the greatest difference in my life. Lots of gratitude there. 🙂
Benjamin!
Welcome!
How wonderful to see you. Sorry you had to wait.
Yep, I agree. That we often make our connections in the same way that the web works . . . quality links are those based on quality content, authenticity, and trust — whether they are formed from code or over breakfast at a place down the road from Benjy’s cafe. 🙂
Gab!
Welcome and thank you!
I like the point you draw with reference to direct marketing — I’m a direct marketing fan, but I so agree. Maybe it’s just that the call to action is reversed — it comes from us first. 🙂
Hey Liz, I found your site on Sphinn. That was a very solid article and I think “It’s not who you know, it’s about who knows what you know” is now among my favorite quotes. I look forward to more quality advice ;).
Hi Kyle!
Welcome!
It’s great to hear you liked what you found when you got here! I’ll try to keep that so. 🙂
You’re not a stranger anymore!
Wow!
Hi Yoav!
Thank you! 🙂
Hi Liz
Standard networks are collecting numbers (Facebook etc)= quantity, truly effective networks are about relationships = quality.
And in my personal book and experience quality wins miles ahead over quantity time after time after time again.
Without the relationships that were offered to us in a specific standard network we – our business – wouldn’t be where we are today. And knowing that makes sharing – giving back with own expertise and skill set – so much more rewarding than being ranked number x with the most friends on any list.
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
Karin!
What you say makes so much sense. The more we know someone, the more we understand their strengths and potential. With that knowledge we can match them to other people and situations that work well for everyone without fear that something might go wrong. 🙂
My kind of networking 😉 (Or should that be referral practise?)
Karin H.
Hi Karin!
I think that “referral practice” is how a network supports us, by continually pointing us in positive directions. 🙂
“It’s about who knows what you know (and who knows what your skills are.) Learn to explain your expertise easily to people who have influence. Influencers naturally talk about folks who are great at what they do.”
Exactly. Great tips, this post reminds me of the chapter in John C. Maxwell’s “21 Irrefutable Laws” about your Inner Circle (which I just read and reviewed). Thanks for making it even clearer.
Hi Stephen!
Welcome!
Wow! Thank you. That’s some encouragement. I was just about to go to Amazon, now I know what to buy. 🙂
I am always dazzled by the way Liz puts things in such a down to earth way. I believe that it is her gift and I am so glad she has nurtured it over the years and shared it with all of us.
I have a copy of Liz’s new book “The Secrets To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog” and to the readers who love her insight and writing style I’d say this ebook is the bomb. It’s all that we love about Liz’s writing as well as all her blogging experience in one nice little package.
Liz, thank you for being you and the best you you can be! xoxoxo
Vicky
Hi Vicky!
Thanks for standing up for me in so many ways. I like what I do deeply and I like doing for the folks who come here because you give so much back to me. 🙂
I’m a lucky blogger. 😉
Liz, your post on “Six Steps to a Remarkably Powerful, Personal Network” may have been written nearly a year ago, but it hits me right where I am today. I needed this straightforward message. I have just left the corporate world to branch out on my own as an independent elearning developer, so “networking” has become more important to me in recent weeks. I have found myself a little bewildered, feeling as though networking is nothing more than a directory of people I’ve met once or twice before. It should be more than that, and you’ve made me realize it is up to me to build quality relationships. Thank you for these tips!
Hi David,
Thank you! Come on over and meet a few of us still talking at open comment night if you have a minute . . . https://www.successful-blog.com/1/the-mic-is-on-its-about-shiny-object-syndro/#comment-1180063
If not, stop by tomorrow. Good people who know things hang out here.
You’re not a stranger anymore.
totally agree! 🙂
Great advice, another would be to spread around your knowledge for free. I write a new Google Knol whenever I get a chance!