Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [78]
He Comments . . .
How come we’re always the ones getting flack for not asking for directions?
She Responds . . .
Good point!
When I teach 18 Ways to Motivate Your Referral Relationships to my clients at the Referral Institute, both men and women are enthusiastic about implementing the techniques immediately within their networks.
When I move on to the 15 Ways Others Can Help You phase of training, the men embrace the 15 activities, but the women give all kinds of excuses, such as, “I could never ask people to do things like this for me,” or “It would be very uncomfortable for me to impose this on people.” I have to remind them that they’d only be asking for help from their closest relationships and wouldn’t be asking anyone to do anything they wouldn’t be happy to do in return. I also remind them how happy they were to get to work on the 18 things I just asked them to do for other people!
Even though women understand the cycle of giving before getting, there is a queasy resistance to the asking phase because, as one respondent expressed, “I don’t want people to think that I am giving to them just so they will do something for me.” The asking part of the cycle is difficult to embrace. Oh, if we were only as good at asking others to help us as we are at helping them.
He Comments . . .
For some reason, I’m remembering my Aunt Harriet holding down a job and raising six kids by herself. This whole time I thought she was just this completely self-sufficient wonder woman, she also could have been desperately wanting help, but wasn’t so great at asking for it.
She Continues . . .
A great example of someone who isn’t afraid to reach out and ask for what he wants is Kevin Eikenberry, a longtime member of my network. It had been some time since we’d spoken so when he contacted me, we quickly got caught up on personal chat and then got down to business. He wanted me to read and review his new book, then post it on my blog if I liked it and thought it was valuable. He then asked if there was anything he could do for me. Instead of responding with the old, “Nothing right now, but I’ll let you know,” I asked him to do the exact same thing for me when my own book came out. He said he was more than happy to help promote it.
Kevin had no issue at all asking his network for help promoting his book. On the other hand, another member of my network has also written a book and never asked for any help.
Women are confused about the definition of business networking partially because the initial phase of general networking is neutral and can later yield both personal and professional results. We tend to blur the line between our business and professional relationships and place greater importance on personal over professional relationships, so it’s natural that general networking deviates to a personal standing in our minds.
It’s a given that we prefer to refer business to those we like and trust. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to continue to blur the line once the business relationship is up and running, going to one another’s family reunions and baby showers together. It does mean that we need to define that difference between personal and professional in our relationships by asking. Asking takes the relationship to a level it won’t go to if that step isn’t taken. Ladies, rev up your engines and start asking!
Another missed opportunity to ask is this classic example of overthinking the personal part of a relationship: My coaching client, Brenda, was angry one afternoon when she arrived for her usual appointment. She flopped herself loudly into a chair