Are you making meaningful connections?
I’ve been changing my approach to networking quite a bit since late April. One of those changes has involved asking myself who I’m meaningfully connected with. When I think of meaningful, I think not just of the frequency of connection both on or offline, but also how much I know the person, and also what kind of active relationship I have with that person.
For example, if I attend a leads referral group each week, I would rate my connection to each of the people as fairly weak, even if we are actively passing leads. The only way that will change is if we actually meet with each other outside the group, and even then the connection could be weak if all we talk about is business.
A different example: I’ve recently started working with a web developer. I’ve brought him in to one of my clients and we might be pitching another client. We obviously have a good business relationship, but I’ve decided to extend it a bit further, so we’ll be getting together for lunch or dinner to talk about other things than business. Why? Because I feel that getting to know him outside of business gives both of us an opportunity to strengthen the existing relationship.
The more actively involved you become in someone’s life, the deeper the connection that’s established. This doesn’t mean you need to become best friends with everyone you network with, but it does mean that getting more involved is a really useful way to meet people and grow connections, which in turn can help grow business.
A final example: I joined a task for a local school district. The opportunity for connection it presents me is that I get to know some people outside of the context of business…we’re focusing on how we can help the school. So it allows me to see a different side of those people and what’s important to them. The result is I’m connected in a deeper way than I was before.
Networking isn’t just about passing business on to other people. Networking is really about making strong connections, learning about people, and helping them.
What do you think? What are you doing to deepen your connections with other people?
Categories: Blog
Tags: business relationships, making connections, networking, Taylor Ellwood
