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We're talking about networking, and one of the things a lot of people think about networking
is, I'm going to go in and give my business card to everybody. What are some tips you
can share with networking you can share, that you've learned, do's and don'ts.
Absolutely, yeah, and I see that all the time, the let me hand my business card out to everybody
which is, it's no different from email, it's spam, you know? It's the same as you're in
a relationship with people and everybody that you are interacting with, they're seeing it
through that filter of what's in it for me? And so the real, the biggest benefit, there
was a book that was phenomenal for me, a gentleman by the name of Keith Ferrazzi, called Never
Eat Alone. And one of the things that, just as a kind of a mindset thing that really opened
me up, was he was talking about so many people think of it as like a bank account of favors.
Like I'll do this thing for this person and then he'll owe me something, and then I'll
do this person, and I don't want to spend that capital that I built up on something
like this. And the analogy Keith used is that all these relationships are like muscles.
And the more you work them, the stronger they get, and that comes from both asking people
for stuff and giving things. And what I've found has been most productive is, for me,
at these networking events, my radar is always up for who can I connect with who else? So
I'm looking for hey, you know, there's... I had a client who's looking for video and
I've sent a guy to a videographer who did a free video shoot for me because I got him
on a thirty thousand dollar proposal for a conference because I just saw a thing on FaceBook
from somebody I connected with who was a meeting planner and who was saying, hey, I need a
videographer, any recommendations, and by connecting them, I was able to get what I
needed late on down the road. So it is all about being open to how can I help other people
and just building those connections going out in the world.