Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [72]
When I accomplish these goals at each event, I not only feel comfortable, I also feel successful. The more we use systems like this, the more practice we get at meetings and comfortable we become. Success follows thereafter as a natural reward. You will not get comfortable if you are not practicing. Get out of your office and go meet someone new today.
Gender Networking Discomforts
The word “networking” conjures a very commercial feeling and is often confused with selling. When I ask women if they’re comfortable networking, they usually reply with something like this: “I can do it, but it’s just not my favorite thing to do. It’s so sales-y!” I believe the biggest issue really involves the word “networking.” Most people think of it as the act of going somewhere to mingle in a room full of other people, shaking hands, giving elevator pitches, and handing out business cards.
While this is part of networking, there are so many other elements to it. Meeting with another person at a coffee shop to learn more about each other is networking. Meeting with an organized small group of businesspeople in order to help one another is networking. Serving on a board and volunteering with a group are both networking, as are chatting with people in the grocery store line or at the PTA meeting.
For those people who stated that they were uncomfortable with or disliked networking, taking another look at the definition of what networking actually is could be a great help. By and large women network naturally, and it is not until the business spin is enforced on it that they become uncomfortable.
Becoming comfortable with networking requires that we learn more about it, practice it more often, and change our mindset about what it is. When we apply the “Givers Gain” approach to it, we become completely comfortable. We are always more comfortable when we are helping others than we are when we are helping ourselves. It is the nature of women to help.
How Do You See Others?
I was at a loss with the results from our data when I first read them. I can’t believe so many people say they are never or almost never uncomfortable networking, yet when we asked if they thought the average person was uncomfortable networking with the opposite sex, suddenly the whole thing took a turn. We saw that they felt everyone else but they were uncomfortable.
We see ourselves very different than we see others. This is human nature. We always see ourselves as different, regardless of how much alike we really are. I perceive myself as someone who is completely comfortable networking with either sex. But I don’t believe people around me are comfortable at all networking with the opposite sex. Why is that? Are we fooling ourselves? So it stands to reason that you see yourself as completely comfortable, but you don’t see me as being that comfortable networking with the opposite sex.
Here’s the kicker: Does it really matter how comfortable we think we are if we’re not producing results? Comfort just means I can go out there and meet people, not that I know how to generate business from those relationships. As a woman, I am completely comfortable at creating relationships. I don’t know if they are always the right relationships for my goals, or if I’m having the right conversations with the right people at the right time, but I am comfortable building relationships.
If I see myself as comfortable, but others do not see me as comfortable at all, then what is the message I’m putting out there? What effect is it having on my ability to build my network? If we are going to get results, we must be able to connect to one another. If others see me as uncomfortable, then I may be doing