You have to grow your network to succeed in business (reminder to read about how each person in your rolodex may be worth $948 per year in income for you).
A key to being a better networker is to let people know you are thinking of them. This is because a key part of human nature is that people want to be loved, popular, etc.
This sounds easy on paper, but it’s tougher to execute.
Below are 7 effective and efficient tips to being a better networker.
Let’s say you are introduced to a new person through some type of business meeting or even at a party…we’ll call him “Mr. Jimmy.”
If you find Mr. Jimmy to be a person you want to get to know better, then ask yourself:
“Who do I know that Mr. Jimmy might be interested in meeting…and who might want to meet Mr. Jimmy?”
Perhaps Mr. Jimmy is a good potential partner, customer or hire of someone else you know.
It doesn’t matter if you just met Mr. Jimmy. This is part of the “Go-Giver” philosophy I wrote about in 7 Easy Tips On How To Be A Go-Giver (Not a Go-Getter). …
I love serendipity — who doesn’t? I met a mayoral candidate for San Francisco last year due to some stuff I did to increase serendipity.
We all love serendipity — is it ever even a negative thing?
You never hear someone say:
“That guy really stabbed me in the back — how serendipitous.”
Right?
The layman’s definition of serendipity is “happy accident” — the word serendipity is said to come from author Horace Walpole who riffed on the word Sernedip (an old name for Sri Lanka) used in a fairy tale called “The Three Princes Of Serendip” about making discoveries by accident.
Here are 5 things I do to increase serendipity:
The most effective way to increase serendipity is to send out “beacons” — I first heard this mentioned by entrepreneur Jack Hidary in the book Power of Pull.
Jack — who works on the neat iAmplify.com business with his brother Murray — uses the analogy of a ship at sea that sends out beacons to let others know where it is and where it’s headed.
Beacons — I like that.
Here are some examples of beacons I’ve used to increase serendipity: …
I first heard about the concept of being a “go-giver” from Bob Burg in a book he wrote called Winning Without Intimidation; he later made the phrase more popular by writing Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea.
I used the Go-Giver phrase, which is corny but good, in a speech I made to entrepreneurs a few years back.
From that speech, and others, here are seven tips to being a better networker or go-giver:
1) Giving is Attractive — “No matter what your profession, if you can give increase of life to others and make them sensible [i.e., “aware”] of this gift, they will be attracted to you, and you will get rich.” Wallace D. Wattles from The Science of Getting Rich …