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November 2008
This month's FlowTIP:
The key to strategic networking is not to get in and out but to develop long lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. Most of the time we make connections with one person that leads to a referral to another contact. This means that we spend time exploring with one person and find out that they can’t help us directly but know someone who may be able to help. This starts the process all over again and does take time. Too often we fail to follow-up with the referral and potentially lose out on a great opportunity to accomplish our goal. In addition to losing out on the opportunity, we take the chance of impacting our relationship with the referrer. This is something that we need to consider when we do ask for help. If the contact can’t help us directly are we willing to follow-up with their referral to someone who can? We need to think about our networking activities from the long-term perspective and if we do we’re more likely to gain the benefits the network has to offer.