Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [86]
Remember that women are more likely to be relational, they take their time, they look for common ground and find places that they can support and collaborate. Women have already said they do not like to commercialize their networks, so it stands to reason they also do not like to commercialize their social time. I have a magnet on my refrigerator, and I am certain many women have seen it. It depicts four women talking, and the caption says: “It is not gossiping, it is networking.” Women socialize, they connect. Men always called it gossiping; often it was done over the back fence, it was relationship building. If you need something for your family, ask a mom. I wrote a short story in the book Masters of Networking called “Mothers are Natural Born Networkers.” Nothing could be more true!
The next step in the progression for women is how to ask their networks to help them build their businesses. Women spend a great deal of time networking, but it is often unintentional. One of the ways to strengthen their networking muscle is to be intentional with their networking activities. Men often serve on boards as a way of connecting and networking, but women serve on boards because they care about the cause and often never connect their business networking to it. If we would be more cognizant of our network, we would realize that we have a vast array of people who can and will help us in our business.
CHAPTER 8
Planned Systems Yield More Results
The Survey Says . . .
Using a System
Using a systematic approach to networking was the focus of several of the questions on the survey. Results were revealing in a number of ways. When we asked the people in the survey if they had a systematic approach for staying in contact with the people they met through networking, 58 percent of the respondents said “No.” We had very similar results on at least one other related question. The difference between men and women in these responses was negligible and not statistically significant.
What is significant, however, is that most people don’t have a solid system in place to guarantee that they stay in touch and ensure their connections are not dropped. This is a fatal flaw in relation to building a powerful personal network. We know this because our later survey results showed how influential the relationship between using systems and producing positive business results was, but we’ll get to that soon. Notice in the quote below how the impersonal follow-up, or lack of a quality system, turns off the recipient:
I once attended a networking evening at which I was “sold” to by the men there. One of them was a car dealer. I was actually thinking of buying a new car at that time. I listened to his sales speech, told him I was very interested and gave him my card, asking that he call me. Two days later I got an impersonal mass-market email from him that he circulated to everyone he’d met. He never called me. What’s the point of going to these things if you are not going to listen to the people you meet or follow up a hot lead?
Those who do use good follow-up techniques show how powerful solid follow-up systems can be. This couple, for example, discovered how to leverage one another’s contacts:
My wife and I work together to bring referrals to each other. She is a banker and I am an online business consultant. Her keeping-in-contact system begins with asking her clients for their business cards. Then she asks them if they have a website, how they like it, and