Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [67]
Guys, be honest with yourself about the groups you’re thinking about joining. Don’t go into them unprepared to make commitments.
Whether your groups are all male or female, or mixed, none will work if you don’t learn the appropriate skills. We can be successful networking, regardless of the organization we choose to join, if we do it the right way, without shortcuts.
The Survey Says . . .
Important Characteristics for Referring
For women, the most important factor when referring business to others was a person’s competency, and for men, character (see Figure 5.2). Even though a person’s competency was more important to women than to men, how successful that person was carried more weight with men. It is not clear how men and women distinguished between these two closely-related factors, except perhaps that men felt a person’s competency was measured by the degree of success attained, and that essentially men and women were talking about the same thing.
Although by a lesser factor (under 20 percent), women were much more inclined than men to use the person’s product or service before making the referral.
You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge strength of character and business development potential from a handshake.
When I first started out in business, I remember being advised to ensure that my contacts knew I was in business for real by ensuring that the first encounter should begin with a firm handshake. I’ve been told a number of times by businessmen that I have a good, strong handshake, and that it tells them I mean business—not like most women they meet.
Maybe, when you reflect upon that statement, it could have more than one meaning.
A strong handshake indicates a no-nonsense individual, straight to the point, let’s get on with the business—and I have to say for the most part that’s very true.
Less successful introductions for me have been with individuals who had weak handshakes.
There is no doubt about it from my experience that those with whom I have forged strong business links have been owners of the firm handshake. Maybe the subconscious takes over. It’s strange, but true.
Assessing a person’s character, competence, and success, among other attributes, is usually a pretty subjective task, of course. For some people, like the survey respondent above, something as simple as a handshake reveals all they care to know.
FIGURE 5.2—Important Characteristics for Referring
In a networking context, these assessments are a way to ensure credibility—as well as to protect the reputation of person X when he or she is referring person Y to person Z. It’s fair to say that men and women both want to be able to trust that every referral they offer produces a positive outcome for everyone involved.
Ironically, competence is defined differently according to perception. Some individuals judge competency levels strictly by business or job performance. Others also feel that networking ability is an accurate gauge for overall professional or even personal competence. What one person views as competence, another may see as character. This quote below is an interesting take on that:
Some men mistake flirting for networking. Women don’t need to be made to feel good by a person of the opposite sex in order to want to do business with them. Most women base their judgment on the strength of the person’s character and their competency level.
He Says . . .
This is interesting. We asked what characteristics were most important to people for deciding whether or not to refer someone. The four categories they responded to were: character, competency, perceived level of success, and trying their product pre-referral. Men scored highest in all of the four categories except for trying the product or service first. Hmmm.
Why would this be? I think the good ol’ boys’ club orall-male business world mentality is responsible for this. There is an unwritten law that we men trust each other until we find