Civilized Networking that Pays Off

Networking affords a way to deliver your organization’s messages to a broad audience and recruit clients, partners, and colleagues in the process.

While networking sometimes gets a bad rap as self-centered and manipulative, it actually opens doors, solves problems, helps others, and lets them help you.

Networking simply means meeting people, learning their interests, sharing your knowledge, and letting relationships develop. A key to success is being natural and friendly, not pushy or demanding.

Guidelines that work for me:

1. Prepare a short “elevator speech” in advance that encourages people to ask questions and get to know you better. A great first line is, “What brings you here?” Unless someone simply came in to get out of the rain, the answer will likely give you an opening to discover common interests.
2. Remember that most people are at least slightly ill at ease in networking settings. A person you approach may be inwardly quite grateful.
3. Volunteer in organizations and meetings you attend regularly. You’ll soon be seen as a resource, and people will approach you with diverse opportunities.
4. Always carry business cards with a tag line summarizing your business (mine is “Technology consulting/writing/editing”). But don’t hand out cards until conversation leads in that direction. Papering a room with business cards is pushy mass-marketing, the opposite of effective networking; most cards distributed this way are immediately discarded.
5. When you receive a useful card, write on the back what you discussed, so you can follow up later. (Make an exception for the Japanese, who regard it as rude to write on someone’s business card.)
6. If you found it worth exchanging cards with someone, stay in touch, even if only occasionally. When you see something that might interest them—a news item, magazine article, etc.—send a quick note with a pointer or the item itself. Many will reciprocate by sending nuggets valuable to you.

Networking is a learnable skill. Many books offer tips and techniques for getting started. Two favorites are:

Make Your Contacts Count provides networking know-how for business and career success and lists several common mistakes, by Ann Baber and Lynne Waymon

Tough Questions—Good Answers helps focus messages to convey and deliver them effectively in various settings, by Thomas F. Calcagni

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