So how to begin?

Regard every new person you meet as someone who might be able to help you in the future by becoming part of your network and you theirs; make it a reciprocal relationship towards your ambitions. While networking may take lots of time and effort the rewards are great, certainly in time saved, money and increased opportunity.

Networking is a two-way street so it also requires development of a personal philosophy – whenever you can, be a giver:

It’s in the nature of networking that if you give to others as much as you can it will be returned. It’s not a conditional ‘give’ as in the Godfather of Mafia fame; give unconditionally expecting

‘Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.’ Ecclesiastes 11:1

nothing back and then through your reputation as a giver somehow your network just grows.

How to start building your network

List everyone you know, yes absolutely everyone, from the categories below:

Think through how you might contact or socialise with these people and what you could offer or what assistance you might give. Remember networking is about give and take so work out what benefits you might bring to your prospective contacts.

Once you get going you’ll be amazed. When a friend of mine started, he carried a network card in his pocket and every time a name popped into his head he wrote it down. He was so surprised when he recalled 250 people easily. A Christmas card list is another good starting point and, if possible, use your parents’ and your partner’s lists as well.

Here are some hints to help you:

• Ask the people that you currently know for referrals in your areas of interest.
• Accept as many invitations as possible where you can make contact with people.
• Explore any opportunities to join formal networks – Rotary, Lions, business groups, etc.
• First impressions are often misleading so make an effort to know the person.
• Make yourself available to help others in their work and leisure projects.
• Always thank those who help you, especially those that give you referrals or recommend you.
• Develop a different leisure activity on a semi-regular basis.
• Collect business cards and make notes about the person.
• Follow up people you know, informing or sending them information or articles of interest.
• When it’s in your interest always share your information or intellectual property.

	‘It isn’t just what you know, and it isn’t who you know. It is actually who you know and who knows you.’ Bob Burg, author
	‘More business decisions occur over lunch than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.’ Peter Drucker, management guru

One of my favourite quotes is:

‘A poor person should take a rich person out to lunch.’ Anon

This might sound strange at first but just think of the advantages that would accrue to you of taking Richard Branson out for lunch. Let’s make it a posh lunch at Alain Ducasse’s place at The Dorchester in Park Lane. It might set you back £300 for the two of you but what would you get for your money?

• You could tap into his network (on the internet he has 2,750,000 hits so he must know a lot of people).
• Running the Virgin group of about 400 different companies his management advice on most subjects would be worth its weight in gold.
• You could contact almost anybody in Europe, America and the Asia Pacific region with the opening words – ‘Sir Richard Branson suggested that I contact you since you ...’
• You could dine out on the event for years to come – ‘When I last had lunch with Sir Richard Branson we chatted about ...’ That would impress anyone from board table to dinner table, from prince to pauper and all that for 300 quid!

I would not be surprised if, in the future, another company was born called ‘Virgin Lunch’. Once a month Sir Richard would welcome you to lunch with himself and seven other participants for £250 a head. That works out at about £1000 per hour – not bad because the overheads are minimal and Sir Richard has to eat at midday anyway! However, I digress, so let’s get back to networking.

How to introduce yourself: The Big Three

Obviously it’s wise to make your first meeting with a prospective network colleague as easy and comfortable as possible for the two of you. Here are the first three questions we usually ask of someone when we meet them for the first time whether it’s at a friend’s party, when you are on holiday or attending a conference:

1. What is your name?
2. Where do you live?
3. What do you do?

Now I am not going to get very far with my potential new person if I just reply: ‘Max, Bondi Beach, Psychologist.’ Here I might get a response such as ‘How interesting’ as the person looks over my shoulder to see if they can move on quickly to someone more interesting.

When meeting someone for the first time we have to help them make conversation and we can do this very simply by offering more information. Giving information about yourself encourages the other person to do the same and before you can say ‘network’ you are deep in conversation and beginning a possible friendship or making a fresh contact.

So recommendations for the three questions are to add:

1. self-disclosure as to where you fit in
2. a tourist tip about where you live
3. a short résumé about what you do.

For example:

1. ‘Max – I am a friend of ...’, or ‘I wanted to be here because ...’, or ‘I have been in Australia for 16 years’, etc.
2. ‘Bondi Beach – the haven of backpackers, beef burgers and beach beauties.’
3. ‘I’m a psychologist – I help organisations make sensible people decisions. I suppose I am an organisational astrologer’ or ‘I predict how people will react to various management options. In this way management decisions have a people input besides just the financial implications.’

You might think, well that’s easy if you are a professional and so have something interesting to say, but the formula works in any situation. When I first left home, if I’d known this stuff, my network would have grown more quickly if I had said:

1. ‘Max – you can tell by my accent I’ve not been here long.’
2. ‘Plaistow – where there are 19 pubs and a church known as St Andrew’s by the Sewer.’
3. ‘Wine stacker – I’m the chap that stacks about 1000 bottles of French wine a day so that you can enjoy it five years later. There’s lots to know about wine and you have to be careful not to be ripped off.’

Now if I meet someone for the first time and they cannot respond to any of these introductory statements then I don’t think that I would want them in my network anyway.

If you go to an event to meet people, lots of people will be employing similar networking techniques. Give yourself an edge similar to mine – who could possibly forget someone who stacks a thousand bottles of French wine a day? However, make it even easier for the other person by having some business cards professionally made for yourself, if your organisation does not provide them, and especially if you are looking for employment. So you now have a new hobby and, if you are unemployed, a part-time job: that of ‘business card collector.’

But what do I ask after the two of us have exhausted the big three above? Here are some obvious suggestions:

At social meetings

• How far away is that from your work?
• What is the schooling like in your area?
• What restaurant would you recommend in your area?
• What do you do for leisure besides PTA meetings like this?
• What did you do for your holiday this (or last) year?

Notice here that all the questions are what are known as ‘open questions’, questions which, unless you are a teenager, cannot be answered with a short two-word phrase or the shorter ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Depending on the situation,¹ make sure that you have your own conversational, amusing if possible, answers to the big three just in case it gets reciprocal, or someone else has also invested in this brilliant book!

The great storm

On 16 October 1987 a great storm, with winds gusting up to 70 knots (130 km or 81 mph), struck Southern England. Everyone was affected and everyone had a story to tell so for at least two years after at social events there was the predictable question, ‘How were you affected by the storm?’ You would not have to say anything for the next 20 minutes! It was said that God sent the storm so that stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen could talk to each other when they first met.

A system for remembering

Psychologists tell us that we can ‘know’ about 250 people and after that it becomes very difficult, so it’s important to develop a system regarding who you have met and if they are suitable to be in the reciprocal helping club. As soon as you can after meeting them, write down some notes about the person, where you met and the date, etc. It’s important to do this because when you ring them in 18 months wanting to know the best way to tie a Bead Head Aggravator or Hare’s Ear for a six or eight hook you can say: ‘You will remember that we met at the Flanagans’ house party and talked about fly fishing.’

They are going to be so flattered that:

• you remembered them
• they have an expertise that you don’t
• you kept their card, and
• you sent them a clipping from Time magazine about the best fly fishing rivers in the world about three months ago.

Another useful gambit is to remember something personal about the person even if it’s just as simple as whether they take sugar in their coffee or a twist in their G&T. Better still, try to remember something unique. When someone meets me again how special do you think it feels when they say, ‘I’m doing my best to drink your thousand bottles of French wine but I remember that you are a chardonnay man’ or ‘How are those Jack Russell’s of yours, Max? Still giving you an excuse to walk to see the beach?’

How to network at conferences, business presentations and social gatherings

• First, do not make a beeline for the buffet and the booze since it’s difficult to shake hands and give and receive business cards with both hands full let alone being able to talk with your mouth full.
• Second, when you reach the door to the event, pause to survey the room. Who looks interesting, who looks popular, who is amusing a group? Those are the people that you want to meet.
• Third, do not drift to one of the walls for protection, or worse, hide in the corner. From the wall position, you can only be seen by the people in front of you. Having a wall behind you is for heroes in Hollywood action movies but in networking it’s good to have someone socially ‘attack’ you from behind. Whenever and wherever possible stay centred.
• Fourth, if you can’t break into a group, form your own group by approaching someone on their own. Like you, they don’t want to be seen as if they have something contagious. If there is a ‘single’ nearby, invite them into the group, introduce your new colleague and give them an update on your discussion, then ask them for their opinion. Soon you will have people drifting over to your group and people will want your card because you know people.

Social leaders usually scan the room to see who they should be talking to. If you are in the ‘scan’ catch the person’s eye and give a friendly nod as if you known them from way back. Then later you can just join their group with the same nod or smile or introduce yourself to the group, making sure that you ‘sweep’ the whole group.

Most of us go on seminars and attend conferences. Here, if you can, try and get a copy of the attendance list so that you can select who you would like to meet and how they spell and pronounce their name.

At the breaks, circulate as much as possible giving your cards out like confetti. Collect them, too, as if they were petrol vouchers. Wear your name tag – yes we all hate it and why would you put a pinhole in your expensive business clothes in the first place? Because most of us can remember faces but not names. If, like me, you find it difficult to speak to someone that you don’t know, the tag at least puts a crack in this interpersonal ice as you use their name before you ask the ‘big three’ questions above.

The opportunities for networking are vast. Growing larger and larger by the minute are the internet network organisations such as LinkedIn, and Facebook with over 35 million participants. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest in the world. Nor must we forget those business and professional networking organisations springing up like mushrooms on a warm summer’s night. If there isn’t one that fits ‘you’ why not develop one yourself?

Becoming a network star

Just as a star gives light, so in your networking give as much light as you can to others. Networking is not just about looking after and advancing self, it’s being reciprocal, even pre-emptive, in your support. If you expect to receive, then you must expect to give. It is a privilege to support others in their needs and what is strange is that the more you support others the more you support yourself and the more you are supported.

Supporting others, providing information, sharing your experience, offering advice (if wanted) proactively – all will ensure that you expand the boundaries of your network. Soon you will develop a reputation as a source of information and someone who always knows useful or influential people.

For meetings, seminars and conferences

• Most people take up networking opportunities to gain business. Big mistake: no one buys or does a deal on a first meeting. Most people also act like guests or attendees at such events. So be different. You are just there to meet people – act as if it were your event and you are the host.
• Arrive early, find out the location of the food, drinks, wastepaper baskets (to dispose of turned up sandwiches and well matured cocktail sausages), cloakrooms, etc. Look down the name cards or guest list so you have an idea of who is who and then be the host. Smile, welcome, directly introduce and work the room. You will find that people will gravitate towards you even if it’s just to ask where the toilet is. Later you can go up to them and, introducing yourself, say ‘Did you find it?’, and then off you go with the big three initial questions.
• Once your network grows you will know people ‘who know people’ so then you can gain a reputation for putting people together where there is a mutual or shared interest. Again this will provide more contacts as new people will contact you to see if ‘you know someone who ...’
• Network stars also send handwritten thank you notes when they are given support in any area. In the corporate world even Christmas cards are printed so you can imagine the impact your handwritten, yes handwritten, note will have. How long does it take to write

‘Great to meet (or catch up with) you last night at Flanagan’s and I just wanted to say thank you so much for recommending that book, Brilliant Personal Development. I’m looking forward to telling you how much my team have come on as a result ...

All the best’

And, of course, use a handwritten envelope and a real stamp: you are being personal, not corporate, and ensuring a network connection.

• The advantages of networking are personified by the success of Apple, Microsoft, eBay and Twitter.
• When building your network, list out everyone you know by sourcing from Christmas card lists, etc.
• Introducing yourself involves some self-disclosure, a tourist tip and a short résumé.
• Make sure you ask open questions to keep things going.
• To become a network star: don’t try to sell; discover what’s what; discover who’s who; act the host; write thank you notes; and follow up.