The Art of Networking

Sunday, 16th December 2007

The NT Branch of the Australian computer society had its annual general meeting this week and I got elected as Vice Chair. During the meeting, we put up a slide show featuring some of the events that we held during the year. Most of them were organised by me on a very small budget by calling in favours from friends, colleagues and clients and it reminded me how far I have come with my networking skills.

Networking is an art form and the old saying “its not what you know, its who you know” is exactly right. Life’s pretty tough as it is so it always helps to have a few people that can point you in the right direction every now and then, or someone who can get you a foot in the door.

Today I was watching bits of the 1987 movie “The Secret of My Success” staring Michael J Fox. Basically in the movie, Michael plays a kid from Kansas who comes to new york to conquer the world of business and goes for a job at his Uncle’s firm. He’s been trying to get an interview for ages but never had any luck, so he decides to just show up at the office unannounced and tells the lady at reception that he is the CEO’s nephew and he is granted a 2 minute interview. He actually is related to the CEO so its not a complete lie. At the end of the interview, he scores a job in the company and the CEO tells him “you’ve got a foot in the door, what you do on the other side of it is up to you.” You’ll have to watch the movie to see what he does on the other side of the door, but it’s quite entertaining!

So how do you go about building your empire of contacts? I could write a whole book on the art of networking but here’s a few tips to get you started:

• Join a club or society that interests you. Chances are that you’ll meet a lot of like minded people and start to swap ideas about mutual interests.
  


• Attend networking functions such as dinners or drinks and aim to meet at least one new person at each event. If you attend with a friend, partner with them and walk around the room meeting people. My target is to meet 5 new people at every event and usually this leads to more business for me.
  


• If someone gives you their business card, take the time to study it before putting it in your pocket. This shows a bit of respect for the person whom you’re talking to and also helps you to remember who the card belongs to when you finally pull it out of your pocket.
  


• One of the fundamentals of networking is to build trust and develop a relationship and nothing breaks trust as quickly as empty promises. So if you happen to say that you will do something, do it. If you promise to give a person a call next week, make sure that you call them - even if they make empty promises themselves. At the end of the day, they will realise that you are someone they can depend upon and they will want to associate themselves with you more often.
  


• The final key tip about networking is that it is a two way street i.e. you have to help other people just as they help you. If you focus on what you can help the other person with, chances are they will want to do the same for you. It also helps to focus on things outside work - try to find some common interests as they often forge the greatest friendships which helps in problem solving. At the last networking lunch I went to, someone was complaining about them having a problem at work with their excel spreadsheets and I mentioned that I encountered a similar problem with another client and would be more than happy to pop around sometime to help them work through it. It’s as easy as that!
  

If you follow these 5 tips, you’ll be well on your way to building up some good contacts that will hopefully open a few doors for you. What you do on the other side of those doors is up to you but in general make the most out of every opportunity. Get networking now!

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!

AJ~

Author: AJ Kulatunga

Category:

networking