Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [51]
“FRANK!”
“Huh, what, honey? Oh, yes, those shoes go perfectly with your peach blouse and pant set.” Just shoot me now!
Of course most, if not all, men will completely deny this when you ask them.
She Responds . . .
The point is, men are comfortable being direct, just doing things to get them done, and once they have completed the task at hand, they are then completely open to relating. Women are less comfortable with a direct approach. It does not mean either of us is wrong, but we can both adjust. It’s a matter of what route we each choose to take, as expressed here:
Men seem to start talking business right away, whereas women seem to start on a more personal level. For example, a man’s first question to me is usually, “So, what do you do?” A woman’s first question is usually something like, “So, how did you find out about our organization?”
Building credibility and profitability with members in our network means we have to learn to communicate effectively, not just in the way we want to be communicated with, but the way our conversation partner wants to be communicated with. For instance, if I’m at a networking event and meet a gentleman for the first time, it’s important for me to understand that he’s likely to try and impress me and want me to impress him. After that’s done, we can move to building trust and credibility. Once he knows I am serious about my business and helping others, I can move toward building a more personal relationship with him.
CHERYL BAKER, CEO OF HUMAX
So many times, men would make the business request really clearly and obviously, pretty much inside our SMART description of specific, meaningful, authentic, relevant, and timely. What would happen is sometimes women would do one of two things. They would make a request for a greater good, rather than a specific business need to be met. The activity could help at a moral or value-based level for a personal cause, and they would put their cause forward in their request, rather than meeting business needs.
An example would be they have a specific job at this location and they are on the board for a homeless shelter. We’d find that they’d often put forward the need of the homeless shelter rather than trying to help themselves in their job.
The Survey Says . . .
Business vs. Relationship by Success
We looked at the responses from people who said that networking had in fact played a role in their success, and within that group we compared those who said they focus first on business with those who said they first focus on the relationship. We discovered that 87.1 percent of the people who said that networking had played a role in their success also felt that it was better to build a relationship first and then focus on the business!
An emphasis on relationships first was clearly and undeniably a key factor in determining whether people were going to identify with networking as having played a role in their success. People who feel that networking has played a role in their success tend to focus on building the relationship before conducting business. This seems to point out the efficacy of the relationship-first approach.
Those who skip the relationship building and attempt to establish an “all business” interaction often discover that trust and goodwill are more than just window dressing—they are part of the social capital that energizes a mutually rewarding business relationship. People who bypass relationship building are more likely