Monday, April 6, 2009

Networking is about connecting, but ...

Are you spending a lot of time trying to connect and build your contact's list? That's been an approach of mine in the past, but it's a lot of work; worthwhile, but still a lot of work.

The other day I received an e-mail from a recruiter saying that she had seen my name cross her desk a couple of times and felt that SHE needed to connect with me. It turns out we were both members of the same group and what she saw was a posting of mine in the discussion group.

This started me wondering how can I do this even more? What can I do to entice people to want to connect with me, so that they are doing the work, and all I am doing is assessing whether the contact is one that I want?

It's called branding! It's called making me so valuable to others to the extent that they want to connect with me. It's called driving people to me. It's called having others tell people that they should connect with me because I am a valuable connection.

This is not about self-aggrandizing; it's about my providing so much value that others are compelled to seek what I have to offer.

Do you ever learn or hear about products, food, movies, or assorted other things that you must have and will do whatever it takes to obtain that item? Of course you do, because you have associated a value with the item that drives you to do whatever it takes to obtain it.

That is what you want to do for yourself. You want to make yourself valuable to the point that people will take the necessary steps to locate and connect.

There are two major benefits to this approach to networking 1) your time is spent creating value for others so that they want to connect and 2) you don't have to spend your time making connections, instead the connections come to you.

Here are the steps:
  1. Create value that others want.
  2. Do things that drive others to you rather than your having to constantly be seeking others.
  3. Create value that cause referrals to you.
Happy Networking!

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