Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [39]
One of our strengths is staying focused on the sale, closing deals, and the hunt. However, we’re seeing that our transaction-related relationships are not working with women who are relationship oriented and not at all focused on transactions as their primary objective. We are losing to those male hunters who have decided to communicate in more female ways.
Women have been the gatherers and community builders for as long as we have been hunters. By building a sense of community they created a nurturing environment for the children and a place for the community to share its riches. Part of the job of gatherers is to collect plants and herbs needed for nutritional and healing purposes. As our tribes discovered the benefits of plant life as food, women began to nurture gardens and small farms.
The act of planting and caring for seeds to grow plants mirrors the building of relationships.
First you plant the seeds. You then care for and protect them, making sure they are planted deep enough and consistently watered over time. You monitor their growth until they are ready to be harvested, and give you back all the work, or investment, you’ve put into them.
Male contributions to the tribe, like shooting a buffalo, happen in a matter of minutes, whereas the female contributions, like growing food, require tending for months. That’s quite a difference. Women have understood for thousands of years the benefit and importance of developing mutually beneficial relationships. Modern times find them using those same instincts and skill sets to develop business relationships.
When women network they are working as gatherers, planting seeds and acquiring friends, not just using transactional friends the way men do, but actual friends. They care about and are interested in their friends and want to help them and talk to them. Yikes! This is scary stuff for men.
So what does all this mean? Men need to become more adept at building real relationships. The problem with a transactional relationship is that it is based on the transaction. Once the transaction is over, then the relationship is over. Women, on the other hand, would do well to focus on extracting more transactions from their business friendships. They must keep in mind what the purpose of business networking is.
Building strong relationships starts by examining how we communicate with one another. It’s very different from the way women do. I know that that isn’t news to anyone.
First let’s define what we mean by communication. Communication is a combination of the verbal and nonverbal details you emit with your choice of words, mannerisms, clothing and style, and grooming habits. All of this communicates who you are and what you stand for.
Both sexes communicate with each other using codes. The group of friends we are speaking with dictates the communication style we use. With close friends the conversations are straightforward, in an “anything goes” style, and with more distant acquaintances they are more professional and reserved. Both men and women adjust communication styles according to the company they’re in. This is a natural process and not one we necessarily do consciously.
Yes, there are those that do not know how to adjust their communication style to the crowd they are in. These people tend to alienate themselves. They are what we call “social misfits.” They just don’t get it. They haven’t been trained and/or don’t have the innate skills to observe and learn socially acceptable behavior. Either their parents didn’t teach them or they