Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [21]
Then I found out about a referral meeting. Though the idea sparked my interest, my cynical New Yorker gene scoffed, “Yeah. Right. A meeting where people refer business back and forth to one another and it actually works? And I’m Prince Charming.” The skeptic in me won and I didn’t go to that meeting, nor did I accept the many invitations that followed over the next six months.
For some unknown reason I finally found myself at one of those meetings, and the way it actually worked blew me away. The weekly opportunity within those meetings to refer thousands of dollars of business got me hooked. Those were my first BNI meetings, and they began the learning process that changed how I view business relationships and my education in using networks effectively. I began working smarter instead of just harder and it made all the difference in the world. Working smarter allowed me to focus more keenly on what I really wanted to do and achieve greater results in less time. I remember thinking that I wish I’d started doing it earlier in my career. I was pretty gung-ho about it. I still am.
The reason I told you that story was to stress the importance of keeping up with current and cutting-edge social and business practices. Even though humans have been networking since the dinosaurs were their biggest worry, the world is new every few years and the way we network and communicate with one another changes with it.
She Comments . . .
My mother’s question, “were you raised in a cave?” comes to mind. Though this usually referred to using the wrong fork, modern social methods are sort of silently voted in by societies, and if you don’t observe them, you don’t get dessert. Or business.
He Responds . . .
Yes, we’ve got to keep ourselves informed and practiced in the latest developments in business communication, or we’ll be left behind. Being left behind translates to being out of business. Period.
In professional networking organizations, much like back in our playground days, both genders can learn networking skills from one another, and this makes for richer, more fruitful experiences for everyone.
Calling all men! Listen up. Our definition of success is not what it should be. We need to build long-term relationships knowing that one referral from one person five years down the road could top your financial goal for the whole year. If I didn’t give you a referral for five years and then I gave you one that was the largest or in your all-time top three sales, was it worth the wait?
She Says...
Ninety-one percent of our global group of professionals said networking played a role in their success. Doesn’t that naturally create a need to understand the communication styles of other genders and cultures? The Referral Institute’s “Room Full of Referrals” program is targeted toward identifying each participant’s behavior style so that we can recognize those styles in an actual meeting, speak the language they best understand, and observe what is important to them. Boiled down, it allows us to network with each person in the unique way they like to be networked with.
The more we study and learn about one another, the more success we’ll have networking. The ladies out there have to learn how men like to network, and what makes them feel comfortable and successful. It will help us be taken more seriously by them if they see us doing some of the things that are important to them.
Networking is about interacting with actual, flesh-and-bone humans, and not just by way of the internet, or even