While it’s been amazing to watch so many people finally “get” the importance of networking in recent years, and commit to strengthening the quality of relationships in their lives, many folks are still a bit behind the learning curve — and could likely benefit from every helpful hint they can get on the subject!  Along these lines, I’d pass along three tips for consideration that might help a few of you get better results when promoting your cause via word-of-mouth.  Enjoy…

1)  Always give people an “out” and allow them to say no

One surefire way to turn people off in your network, especially if you’re dealing with a fairly new and untested acquaintance, is to act pushy or “entitled” to the person’s assistance.  As important as your own priorities might seem, you’ll usually get farther, faster, if you start off with a polite statement letting the other person know (directly or via implication) that you won’t be at all offended if they turn down your favor request.  This might sound something like:

“I realize you’re likely quite busy these days, but if you can spare a few minutes, I’d love your help with…”
“Please feel free to say no, but I was wondering if…”
“I’m sure you’re getting plenty of requests like this these days; however, if I could be so bold as to ask…”

Maybe this is a passive/aggressive Seattle thing, and different from how one would network in, say, New York City, but I know that I personally feel much more inclined to help when a person shows they appreciate my time — and doesn’t give me a guilt trip if I’m unable to immediately grant their request!  So think about letting other people off the hook, immediately, when asking for favors.  Most of the time, this will improve your success rate.  While the squeaky wheel may get the grease in many situations, networking is not one of them!

2)  Don’t ask directly for referrals; make them come to you

You may find this surprising, but I rarely advise my job search clients to ask other people directly for personal referrals.  To me, such an “ask” isn’t necessary if you’re already following good networking practices, since as explaining to people what you’re looking for (aka the Elevator Pitch) and providing them with a clear description — or better yet, a printed list — of the specific types of people and organizations you’re most interested in connecting with.

If you always make a point to set the stage in this manner, you’ll find that you rarely have to ask people to pass along useful names.  They’ll start doing so of their own accord, based on the clues you’ve shared with them, and will usually feel a whole lot better about things since THEY get to be in control in this scenario — and feel like a hero — versus feeling pressured to cough up their Rolodex.  So back off, stop acting like a sleazy salesperson, and ditch the “Do you know anybody else I should be talking to?” phrase from your vocabulary.  Start doing your part, instead, to build rapport and to educate your contacts about your ongoing networking goals and objectives.  You’ll find that people respond much better to this approach and will turn out to be more prolific in terms of making introductions on your behalf!

3)  Mind your manners with on-line networking

Lastly, just in case there’s any confusion, social networking websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and BizNik don’t exempt one from practicing good manners and being polite — at least, if one hopes to get useful mileage out of such systems!  Time and time again, I see people asking for favors on these kinds of sites in a manner that comes across as “borderline rude” in terms of tone.  So don’t discriminate between on-line and off-line networking in terms of the need to practice common courtesy.  Both avenues require it.  By way of example, here’s a recent before-and-after exchange I went through with a client in terms of helping them polish up a LinkedIn request:

Original Version

“Tina:  Would love to get your insights on Lean and Six Sigma opportunities in the area (employment, contracting and consulting).  I am a Lean Master Black Belt and spent 12 years at Lockheed Martin. I moved to the Seattle area to work for Amazon.com when they came looking for Six Sigma to help them build out operations for their new On-Line business.”

New & Improved Version

“Hello Tina: We haven’t met, but we apparently have a few trusted friends in common on LinkedIn.  As a fellow Lean and Six Sigma professional who recently moved to the Seattle area, I was hoping to compare notes with you on which companies in town might use these methodologies to a significant degree.  Following 12 years as a Lean Master Black Belt for Lockheed Martin, I moved to Seattle 3 years ago to work for Amazon.com when they came looking for Six Sigma to help them build out operations for their new On-Line business.  Since that time, however, I haven’t had the chance to do much research on what other companies in town might be proponents of Lean or Six Sigma.  Would you have any potential insights in this regard?  And if so, would there be a time in the near future when I could call you for a quick 5-10 minute conversation?  If so, I’d greatly appreciate it!”

At first, my client didn’t really see what was so wrong with his original note, until I asked him to flip the situation around and ponder how he’d respond to such a request, if sent along by a total stranger.  This seemed to do the trick.  And once he retooled it to include some extra elements of context, appreciation, and politeness, I assured him his odds of a successful response would go WAY up!

While the phrase “it’s not what you know, but who you know” has floated around for decades in the business world, I think people these days are sensing (accurately, in my opinion) that relationships have become even more important in the career/business success equation than they ever have been before.  Arguably, more important by a whole order of magnitude, especially now that social networking technologies have become commonplace and people are able to connect in a  wide variety of new and creative ways.

Could this be an overstatement of things?  Or a convenient whitewash of history and the important role relationships have always played in business endeavors?  Perhaps.  But either way, there’s no question that networking is a crucial part of job hunting success — and that everybody stands to gain by getting better at it.

For this reason, I thought I’d take a moment to share some great networking tips and insights that were passed along to me by my good friend, Virginia Kirn, over at Ajilon Finance.  Virginia has been an executive recruiter in the accounting and finance field for many years — and is one of those “added value” recruiters who doesn’t just always focus on making a buck, but also tends to dispense great job search advice and try to help people be successful, even if she can’t directly place them in a job, herself.  As part of this commitment, she devotes a lot of time to coaching the candidates she meets about the networking process, since (please excuse the gross generalization) most accounting professionals tend to be pretty introverted — and may not be quite as savvy about the relationship management process as, say, their counterparts in the sales and marketing world.

So without further ado, here are some specific pointers that Virginia was kind enough to let me pass along:

– When attending professional and industry events, try to go as someone’s guest whenever possible.  If you don’t know a member of the group in question that you can ask for this favor, reach out to the Membership VP of the association (you’ll almost always find this person listed on the organization’s website) and ask them to bring you as their guest.  They should be happy to do this for you, since it’s their job to welcome new members to the club, after all!

– When introducing yourself to people, say something along the lines of “I’ve been doing ABC for the last x number of years.  For my next career step I’d like to do XYZ.  Who do you know in that line of work?”  If they’re able to think of somebody in the room that meets that description, ask them to introduce you to that individual.  If the person in question isn’t in attendance,  ask if they’d mind sharing their contact info and having you get a hold of them, using their name as a reference point.  And if things are going really well, shoot for the moon and ask “is there anybody else you know that might be useful for me to contact?”  Try to get two names from each person, if possible.

– If you’re conducting an informational interview, and seeking to learn more about a new career field, some good questions to ask are 1) How did you get your start in this industry?; 2) What professional associations do you belong to?; 3) What would you recommend to me at this stage in my career?; 4) What is fun/difficult/satisfying about this line of work?; and 5) What professional certifications are most valuable in this particular career field?

– In every networking situation, make a point to circle back around to the person who originally introduced you and thank them for the referral.  Say something along the lines of “I met with so and so.  It was great!  I learned about this and that and the other thing.  Thank you for opening your network to me.”  Following up in this manner is extremely important because 1) It is professional courtesy; 2) It gives them a chance to give you another name, in case they’ve met someone else for you to talk to; and 3) It keeps you top of mind.  As part of this step, you can also offer to open your professional network to them by saying something like: “What kind of people would you like to be connected to?  Perhaps I can return the favor.”

Wrapping up, on the subject of networking as a whole, Virginia’s point-of-view is that: “Networking is fun, powerful, and a great way to recession-proof your career.  It is an essential part of finding work that you feel passionate about.  Whether it’s connecting with hiring managers, candidates, customers or quality vendors, networking is how business gets done.”

Great advice, Virginia, and if anybody has some follow-up comments they’d like to share — or better yet, some accounting/finance needs in their organization they’d like some help filling — Virginia can be reached here and I’m sure would love to hear from you!

Well, the poll results are in!  If you haven’t gone back and checked the posting I ran earlier this month, asking whether “quality” or “quantity” was more important when it came to forging connections on LinkedIn and similar sites, here’s a link that will take you there.

In sum, out of 27 people who took the time to vote, two of them seemed to feel that it was best to err on the side of building lots of connections, 10 of them felt people should be really cautious about who they hooked up with, and 14 felt that the answer really depended on the context of the situation and the purposes you were using the site to achieve.  And one person basically voted “none of the above” for some odd reason.  I’m not sure what other option there might be, actually, in terms of connection methodology, but if you’re the one rebel out there who voted this way and want to clarify your point-of-view, I’d love to hear it!

At any rate, it probably comes as no surprise that I would have voted for the third option, above, based on my belief that one’s “promiscuity level” on sites like LinkedIn should depend entirely on what you use the site for  and the risk/reward curve you’d face in connecting to lots of people on these types of systems.  For example, if you are someone who makes your living by networking and accessing lots of diverse people, I can completely understand the benefits that would result from connecting to almost anybody who asks, even if they’re a complete stranger.  For example, if you’re in a sales or recruiting role, there’s an awful lot to be gained, financially, by having thousands of 1st Degree contacts on LinkedIn and being able to access millions of other 2nd and 3rd Degree contacts, as a result.  You also probably have the networking chops to deal appropriately with the barrage of return favor requests and introductions you’re likely to get as a result of pursuing this high-volume strategy.

If you’re NOT in a sales-related role, however, you probably have a lot more to lose than to gain by overexposing yourself to thousands of contacts on these kinds of systems.  For starters, if you’re somebody in a management role with a well-known company, the reality these days is that you’re going to attract a lot of attention from job hunters seeking some inside help getting hired in your organization.  This can become  burdensome, after a while, especially if these requests are coming through complete strangers or other people you’ve let into your network, but don’t know very well.  You could also be a big neon target for hunter-type sales professionals eager to get an audience with you.  Don’t get me wrong — these are perfectly legitimate uses of the system and people have every right to ask the other folks around them for favors — but if you’d prefer to minimize the number of such requests you have to field on a regular basis, it’s smart to connect more carefully from the get-go and only build ties with a handful of people you have a great deal of trust in.

Is this advice reaching you too little, too late?  Have you already let a plethora of people connect to you on LinkedIn, including folks you don’t know all that well?  Unfortunately, the only permanent way to deal with this issue would be to actively disconnect with some of the people you’ve already hooked up with, but this is pretty bad form if they haven’t done anything specifically to abuse their connection with you.  A better approach, in most cases, is to visit your LinkedIn “Account & Settings” page and make a few adjustments that will protect you from some of the more extraneous requests.  For example, you could tweak your “Connections Browse” setting to prohibit casual browsing, as I do, so that people can’t just flip through everybody you know on the system looking for targets of opportunity.  Additionally, you can change your “Invitation Filtering” option to only accept invitations from people who know your e-mail address, going forward.  Or you can go into the “Contact Settings” page and tell the system to only let certain types of introduction requests through, such as business deals versus job inquiries, that sort of thing.

The bottom line is that you have a LOT of options in terms of how you approach sites like LinkedIn and how restrictive (or not) you choose to be about who you connect with.  The trick is to come up with the right strategy, for you, based on your professional focus and your relationship to “relationships” in general!

Years ago, I remember seeing a Saturday Night Live skit where Chevy Chase (playing his famous news anchor role) said something like: “In other news, social scientists have announced that the world’s population continues to grow at a steady 5% a year and that there are now an estimated 5.3 billion people on the planet.  The number of interesting ones, however, hasn’t changed.  That number is still 17.”

Okay, fine.  This might be a little over the top, but I’ll tell you, it hit me the other day that there’s a grain of truth in this sketch that actually has a serious bearing on the fortunes of many job hunters.  As obvious as it sounds, what struck me was the fact that so many elevator pitches one hears out there (“Hi there.  My name is John Smith and I’m a seasoned, results-oriented operations manager with over 27 years of diverse experience in…”) suffer from a fatal flaw: they’re just unquestionably, undeniably, painfully BORING!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m saying this with love in my heart, as well as a big “mea culpa” in recognition that I haven’t done a better job recognizing and promoting this idea in the past when helping people with their elevator pitch development.  After chatting with a number of clients lately, however, and asking them what stood out about some of the people they’d met with recently, I realized that the amount of the standard “resume stuff” like job titles, industry background, and the like that they were retaining was roughly zero.  The things they were remembering about people were almost always more personal.  Or unique.  Or off the beaten path.  Things like “Oh, that guy!  Isn’t he the one who just moved here from Rhode Island?” or “You know, I really liked Steve, the Eagle Scout” or “Betty…Betty…oh yeah, she’s the one who shows her toy poodle at Kennel Club shows!”

Again, this realization was so obvious when it hit me that if it were the proverbial snake, I’d be a severely bitten man right now.  But I sense I’m not the only one out there who has overlooked the importance of making sure, first and foremost, that you come across as INTERESTING when you introduce yourself to people.  In hindsight, it’s hard to deny that this is the greatest single ingredient in an effective pitch, since without it, you’re clearly sunk.  You may get a string of courtesy nods and some polite follow-up questions from the folks you encounter — heck, this is Seattle, after all — but the moment you walk away, they’re going to be flushing their short-term memory of anything you said that didn’t have any oomph or sticking power behind it.

So at the risk of being presumptuous, since I’m somewhat late to the party with this realization, I thought I’d quickly outline my own personal thoughts about what tends to make for MORE vs. LESS interesting material when it comes to personal introductions and networking banter.  Feel free to agree, disagree, or add suggestions accordingly…

MORE INTERESTING:

•  Geographical places (e.g. where you live, where you grew up, where you came from originally…)
•  Specific company names (e.g. where you’ve worked, where you’ve applied for jobs, where your spouse works…)
•  Passionate feelings (e.g. core beliefs, convictions, solutions you’d enjoy providing, what you love most about your life/career… )
•  Interesting observations (e.g. market predictions, business insights, trends, surprising developments…)
•  Humor (e.g. this is dangerous and highly subjective ground, but if you make somebody laugh, they’ll remember you!)
•  Personal breakthroughs (e.g. key milestones you’ve reached, successes you’ve had, challenges you’ve overcome…)
•  Hobbies (e.g. as long as they’re genuinely interesting and appropriate for mixed company…)

LESS INTERESTING:

•  How many years you’ve been in the workforce
•  Your skills, experience, and qualifications
•  The job titles you’ve held in the past or are targeting now
•  Your own personal wants and needs
•  Your current job situation (and any related anxieties about it)
•  Your setbacks (e.g. interview failures, frustrations, etc.)

This is just what comes to the top of mind when I mentally thumb through the list of people who have recently made a distinct positive impression on me, versus those I’ve bumped into and now only seem to have fuzzy recall around.  So again, whether you’re a professional in transition or somebody else (business owner, sales rep, etc.) who needs to have a high-quality pitch under your belt, I’d urge you to seriously evaluate the “interest quotient” of how you’re introducing yourself to people.  You may feel you have to keep things strictly business and within a sanitized comfort zone, but my personal experience is that this approach will fall short of accomplishing your ultimate goal — which is to be somebody who people will remember and be willing/able to help out, going forward!

I’ll be retooling my pitch, accordingly.  How about you?

In my blog entry a few days ago, I praised Liz Lynch (author of Smart Networking) for her wonderfully simple advice to those job hunters (and other folks) who want to be reciprocal in their networking efforts, but feel they just don’t have all that much to give, at least of a tangible nature.  Her advice?  When all else fails, you should focus on giving people a feeling that they’ll enjoy, cherish, and remember.

Maya Angelou once made a similar observation, which a good friend of mine recently reminded me about.  Ms. Angelou remarked: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Do these statements hold true in your own life?  Can you cite instances of where somebody did a good turn by you, however small, that made your day and impacted you in a positive way you’ll remember for the rest of your life?  I know that I do.  And if you don’t, boy, I’m not really sure what to say.  All I can assume is that you must be wired pretty differently from the rest of us…

So if you’re a professional in transition, trying to master the subtleties of the networking process, I’d urge you to heed the above thoughts and observations carefully.  In my experience, they represent one of the most significant realizations that can help a person take their networking efforts to an entirely new level, both in terms of their short-term job hunting prospects as well as their long-term career success.  In all likelihood, after all, you’re going to be rubbing elbows with hundreds of different individuals throughout the course of your search.  And the one thing all of these people have in common is that they’re human beings — and few human beings have a maximum upper threshold in terms of how much appreciation they enjoy receiving, as long as they perceive it to be genuine in nature.

So while it can be hard to think beyond your own immediate wants and needs during the turbulence of an employment search, you should strive to develop your “giving” muscles and to focus on ways that you can consistently uplift and raise the spirits of those around you.  Do you routinely go out of your way to make the people around you feel respected?  Important?  Appreciated?  Entertained?  Special?  Helpful?  Or that they’ve made a difference in your life or job search?  If not, it’s never too late to learn, since there are a near-infinite amount of ways that you can impart these feelings to people and the good news is that they”re all free — or nearly free, depending on the gesture.

On that note, here’s a list of some simple and proven techniques you can add to your networking repertoire, until you develop your own signature methods:

– Remember people’s names and use them often (Was it Dale Carnegie who said our own names are the sweetest music our ears ever hear?)
– Send a handwritten thank you card expressing genuine appreciation for the person’s time (this display of gratitude never gets old)
– Surprise somebody with a LinkedIn endorsement, letter of recommendation, or another form of written testimonial (not just a nice gesture, but a potentially profitable one for the other party, as well)
– Make a thoughtful, relevant introduction on somebody’s behalf (tells a person you’re proud to have them in your network)
– Point out the qualities you admire in a person (don’t overdo it, of course, but sincere flattery can get you everywhere at times…)
– Pass along a book, article, CD, or some other small token gift that you know a person will enjoy (shows you listened to what they like and care about)
– Make a donation to a person’s favorite charity (if not immediately, then down the road, when asked, without hesitating)
– Put a person’s advice to good use and then circle back around, a week or two later, with an update (home run! home run!)
– Express genuine appreciation for people’s time; don’t act obligated or entitled to their assistance (sadly, this behavior still stands out; I can’t tell you how many contacts of mine have told me they’ve been “stood up” by other people lately who asked them for their help)
– Give the gift of your full, undivided attention (as above, it’s sad that this gesture will differentiate you from others, but trust me, it will)
– Offer to return the favor, however possible, down the road (shows that you recognize the value of what you were given)

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks.  There are so many other examples I could share of where savvy networkers have found imaginative and inexpensive ways to make a person’s day and make themselves “memorable” for all the right reasons.  In fact, if you yourself have been the recipient of any such gestures, I’d urge you to submit a comment on this posting and share your story with the rest of us.  Speaking for myself, I know that I can personally recount dozens of people who have made a lasting positive impression on me through some small gesture or the other, over the years, and that these people hold a “special status” in my life/business sphere that money alone could never, ever buy…

Ready for esoteric networking commentary, part two?

While composing my previous article, about the tie-in between the famous “give to get” networking principle and the “potlatch” rite practiced by a number of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest, it struck me that there was one other geeky example I could share where modern job search advice seems to intersect with the annals of art, science, and history.  Again, folks, I realize it’s a sickness, so forgive me.  But I just love it when I spot a new twist or juicy, corroborating case study about networking that I haven’t seen anybody talk about before out there…

So this time around, we’re going to talk about the fascinating world of game theory.  If you really want to know more about this field, click here, but the cliff-notes version is that it involves scientists and mathematicians applying complex formulas, algorithms, and simulations to try to uncover the keys to successful strategy — be it of the military, corporate, board game, or “winning in life” variety.  And in these studies, if you peer closely enough, you’ll find empirical echoes of the “give to get” networking philosophy playing out, as well.

One famous experiment, for example, demonstrated that the most successful and stable long-term strategy for individuals living within a community was to always cooperate with the people around them as the first option.  To quote a few relevant passages about this study, again from Wikipedia: “Greedy strategies tended to do very poorly in the long run while more altruistic strategies did better, as judged purely by self-interest.”  Additionally, after conducting the experiment, Robert Axelrod [game theory expert and professor of Political Science & Public Policy at the University of Michigan] reached “the oxymoronic-sounding conclusion that selfish individuals for their own selfish good will tend to be nice and forgiving and non-envious.”

How accurate or controlled was this particular experiment?  I can’t say for sure, since I can barely remember how to do long division, much less understand the level of math involved in this kind of thing.  But setting that issue aside for a moment, if you re-read the paragraph above, there’s one part that really caught my attention and that relates back to the key point of this article, which is how these concepts relate to business and career networking.  If you read the quote again, you’ll notice that the experiments in question weren’t examining the benefits of cooperation from an ethical standpoint or for the sake of community welfare as a whole.  They were testing the effectiveness of cooperation (i.e. reciprocity) solely as a self-interested strategy designed to help the individual in question “win” and satisfy their OWN personal wants and needs.

This, to me, is the really intriguing part.  According to these experiments, even if one truly does view networking solely as a means to an end, from a purely self-interested “how can I leverage the people around me to get help/leads/referrals?” point of view, these studies still suggest that the key to success is to practice a help-others-first strategy as opposed to just going out and strip-mining your Rolodex for favors.  Scientifically proven?  Absolutely beyond dispute?  Directly relevant to your own daily networking efforts?  I’ll leave those questions up to you to answer, but I thought it was some interesting food for thought, at the very least…

Given the avalanche of books, literature, and blog articles that have been produced on the subject of “networking” over the past decade, it can be tough to find something new to contribute to the discussion, at times!  By now, most professionals (especially those in transition) have heard the same key networking themes dogmatically repeated dozens, if not hundreds, of times during their search:

1)  60-80% of all jobs come through the “hidden” job market of  networking and personal contacts;
2)  Social networking websites (e.g. Facebook, Biznik, LinkedIn) are now indispensable tools in the networking arsenal; and
3)  Your networking shouldn’t be 100% one-sided; you should practice a “give to get” philosophy for best results

It’s around the third point above, however, that I wanted to add a few thoughts that I haven’t seen talked about much in the networking literature to date.  As an avid fan of history, and sociology, I’m always on the lookout (to a fault, probably) for connections between supposedly “new” job hunting principles and other aspects of civilization that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years.  To me, finding these connections is not just fun, but helps me get a better grasp on why certain principles work, how long they’ve worked, and how best to explain them to other people who may not be as familiar with them on a day-to-day basis.

So on that note, let’s talk for a second about the idea that we can all get more of what we want out of life by focusing on giving things to others, versus getting things ourselves.  Frankly, I think most of us would agree that this notion makes sense.  Nobody likes being used, after all, and I’m sure all of us have had the experience of having been asked for a big favor by somebody who then disappears without a word of thanks, a thoughtful follow-up note, or a single gesture of reciprocity.  When this happens, too, I’m sure we all tend to kick ourselves and promise that we’ll never lift a finger to help the ingrate in question again, right?  I mean, I don’t know about you, but I certainly have a “mental blacklist” (thankfully a very short one!) of people from the past to whom I gave, and gave, and gave, and didn’t ever really seem to “get back” from.  So to avoid becoming one of these people, myself, I consciously focus on trying to help other people and reciprocate as much as possible, knowing that these efforts are mostly likely to keep the door open for future favors.

As for the origins of this whole two-way networking notion, one could certainly argue that Dale Carnegie was the first person who brought the “give to get” concept to the masses in his 1936 classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”  Since then, numerous authors have slapped their own spin on the same concept and re-branded it.  For example, there are variations on the theme found in both Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” as well as Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” books.  You’ll also find a metaphysical twist on the principle running throughout all of the “Law of Attraction” titles that have come out in recent years.  Every few decades, like clockwork, somebody seems to resuscitate this pearl of interpersonal wisdom, package it for the next generation, and sell a few million dollars’ worth of books and self-help videos.

My belief, however, is that there’s a community out there that’s got even Mr. Carnegie beat in terms of espousing the “give to get” concept in an organized way.  Who might that be?  Growing up in Juneau, Alaska, we spent a fair amount of time in school studying the history of the local Native tribes, and I remember being taught that these communities routinely held a special type of party called a “potlatch” where the hosts would (among other rites) make a point of giving away lavish gifts to all of their guests, almost to the point of impoverishment.  The more valuable the gifts given, the greater the esteem and respect would be accorded to the hosts.  To cite the relevant Wikipedia entry on the subject, in a Potlatch culture “the status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who distributes the most resources.”

So when it comes to the idea that giving freely to other people is the best route to achieving success, both among one’s network and among the community at large, I think the Pacific Northwest tribes get the prize for fleshing this idea out first in formalized fashion.  In fact, I’ll confess that whenever I hear the “give to get” guideline cited by various networking experts out there, I automatically translate the concept into “The Potlatch Principle” in my head, since this label helps me both understand it, as well as remember and practice it in my own business ventures.

Pretty esoteric stuff, I realize, and I wouldn’t be surprised a bit if some of you immediately start forwarding me some literature proving that the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, or some other ancient civilization was routinely preaching/practicing the two-way networking schtick even earlier!  As I mentioned, though, it’s hard to find anything terribly original to add to the sea of networking advice out there, so I thought I’d dust off my keyboard today and give it my best shot…

Well, the hits just keep on coming!  In the last few days, I’ve been thrilled to witness a continuing wave of “unabashed helping” taking place out there in the job market, which is absolutely great to see.  Story after story has come rolling in to my inbox lately of people who have been on the receiving end of some generous (and frequently unprompted) assistance from friends, acquaintances, and often even complete strangers.

What I believe this trend underscores, more than anything, is a rediscovered realization around the importance of community.  Simply put, people have banded together since the dawn of time largely out of the realization that it’s a wise strategy to surround yourself with other trusted individuals, given that all of our fortunes (literally and figuratively) are extremely fickle and uncertain, at best.  Sometimes you’ll be in a position to be a “giver” when those around you are in need, and at other times, you’ll need to become more of a “taker” when your own personal chips are down.  But that’s the beauty of it.  Communities get this, intrinsically, and operate based on the time-tested principle that what goes around tends to come around.

So in an era when many traditional community structures (e.g. bowling leagues, town hall meetings, the church, etc.) are not quite as commonplace as they once were, it’s great to see people banding together in new ways (e.g. LinkedIn Groups, networking gatherings, political “tea parties”, etc. ) to replicate the same awesome power of the community construct.  Not feeling that you’re part of an active community of any kind?  If so, it’s time to find one.  Or perhaps even more than one.  Searching for work as an “island unto yourself” is too stressful of a proposition these days for the average person to take upon themselves, alone.

As for some specific upbeat stories to pass along, related to helpfulness, I’d first steer people to the recent blog entry written by Mark Ippolito here that encourages everybody to take an hour of their time each month and devote it to reaching out and helping somebody they know who is in career transition.  What a great concept, especially if you don’t wait for a person to ask you for this help, but volunteer it proactively, instead.  Such a gesture can go a long way to reviving the flagging spirits of a job hunter, even if the help you offer is of a fairly modest variety.  Mark has even created a Facebook page here where people can share stories about this “pay it forward” project.

On a related note, I know that I’ve personally referred three people along lately to a few of my former clients who are all extremely busy individuals.  And to their credit, each and every one of them stepped up to the plate and agreed to lend a hand!   While I’ll keep their names anonymous to protect the innocent, I’ll post a snippet of each of their e-mail responses, below, just so we can all bask in the spirit of their generosity…

•  “It would be my pleasure to speak with him.  Have him email me and I’ll have my admin set up a time we could meet and discuss career options with him. Thanks for thinking of me for this sort of thing.  I really enjoy giving someone tips on how to proceed with a career.”

•  “Please feel free to pass along my e-mail address to your client and I’d be happy to spend some time, either over the phone or in person, discussing career options in the SEO/SEM/Online marketing field.”

•  “Always happy to help out.  By the way, it really is no problem to shove people toward me who need some insight into [my current company] since this is what Networking is all about, isn’t it? And I am pretty sure I am getting the better part of the deal anyway.”

Perhaps these short sentences don’t seem like much to some of you, but to me, they represent a layer of exciting evidence that people are starting to wake up and realize that generosity is a downright smart life strategy, plain and simple.  Who knows how these people will be repaid for their time, either by me, the person I referred along, or in some other way known only to the universe?  I’m just happy to count such people as friends in my own “community of contacts” and if each/any of you are reading this, my thanks, again!

And as a very appropriate ending to this post, I’d urge you to each click here and refresh yourself on a classic fable that addresses these exact issues — despite being over 2,000 years old!  Can we all learn something from this savvy lion, or what?

While I’m out sick from the office today, nursing a cold and suffering from an almost complete loss of my voice, I’m thankful that at least my fingers still work — since I’m a bit behind on my normal blogging regimen and this will be a good chance to get some thoughts out of my brain and onto the page!

Primarily, looking back at various experiences over recent weeks, what stands out the most in my mind is the growing and critical importance of “social capital” as part of the career success equation.  I know, I know.  Everybody has figured out by now that networking is supremely important and that landing a job is most likely going to come through a word-of-mouth interaction, as opposed to published ads or staffing firms.  And yet, in recent months, I’ve seen multiple forms of evidence that suggest this dynamic is even more pronounced that in has been in years past, and that personal relationships are now accounting for perhaps 80-90% of all hiring activity — compared to the traditional 60-70% statistic that is most frequently tossed around!

Now unfortunately, I don’t have the resources to launch a major longitudinal survey to prove this hypothesis beyond the shadow of a doubt, but I can attest, anecdotally, that the vast majority of clients I’ve been working with who have landed recently have done so primarily through a personal relationship of some kind.  To me, it’s as if companies have largely given up relying on advertisements to find the talent they need, at least for mid-to-senior level positions, likely due to the fact that they a) don’t want to have to invest dozens of hours in resume screening and interviewing and b) they figure they’re virtually guaranteed to find a trusted, vouched-for candidate from among their network if they put the word out far and wide enough.

There was a recent article I came across discussing the massive growth of the Craigslist job board, in fact, but then commenting how some companies have stopped using it since they were getting overrun with resume submissions.  And on a separate but related note, one of my clients who just landed (hooray!) mentioned that the reason he was selected for the job was because the hiring manager knew him from a few years back, at a previous company, and figured it was just faster and easier to hire him — as opposed to wading through the hundreds of other resumes that were sent in.  So on the surface, one might have seen the advertisement in question and thought it was a level playing field, but as in so many cases, the spoils went to the person who had a personal connection to the company, behind the scenes.  Ah, nepotism can be a beautiful thing when it works for you, rather than against you!

So from my standpoint, based on the activity currents I’ve been observing out there in the market, the importance of networking has taken yet another quantum leap forward in terms of job search effectiveness, leading me the main “advisory” point of this posting: it’s high time for every professional to take their relationships seriously and get their social capital in order!

What does this mean, exactly?  It means that if you walk into my office, and ask me why your job search and career prospects don’t seem to be faring very well, the first thing I’m going to want to know about is the quality and quantity of the relationships you’ve built over the years.  And if you’re not able to produce a list of some kind, outlining the various people you have in your network, I’m going to send you off to create one.  I don’t care whether you use a simple Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Outlook, a fancy CRM system like Act! for Windows, or even good old-fashioned pen and paper — we just need to get a handle on who you know, how you know them, and how well you’ve communicated with them about your current situation.  It’s really that simple.  And it’s the absolute baseline starting point for anybody who wants to engage in a serious discussion about either generating new business for their company or generating fresh leads from a job search standpoint.

You wouldn’t consult a financial advisor (or at least expect useful advice) without being able to show them where all of your financial capital is tucked away, would you?  Along the same lines, don’t consult a career coach or seek out help with your job search strategy until you can account for the full spectrum of your social capital and how it’s distributed.  It’s an absolute necessity to have such a system in place, no matter which corner of the professional world you inhabit, and your system doesn’t have to be complicated — just complete!

It doesn’t really matter who you are, where you live, or what you do for a living — the odds are, a large portion of your ongoing success is going to boil down to your ability to generate a consistent stream of quality referrals from your network.

As a job seeker, personal referrals are vital to helping you get a foot in the door before positions get advertised, as well as in helping you secure some “special consideration” even after an opportunity has been announced to the public at large.  And if you’re a business owner or consultant, instead, referrals will almost certainly be the lifeblood of your business development efforts, and your success will be heavily dependent on your ability to convert each satisfied client into a series of additional leads and prospects.

In light of this reality, I thought I’d take a moment to pass along five tips that might be helpful to those of you out there who are somewhat new to the networking game.  These tips derive from the hundreds of successful (and unsuccessful) networking interactions I witness among my client base each month — as well as through my own business development efforts — and I feel strongly that adopting these principles will help almost anybody increase the number of quality referrals they generate on a regular basis.

1)  Entitlement is out

First of all, more than anything else, I’d emphasize that nobody “owes” anybody referrals — so don’t ever pressure your contacts for names or act like you’re entitled to dive-bomb their Rolodex!  Even when people pay for some of the high-end programs I offer, which cost a thousand dollars or more, I make it absolutely clear up front that people are paying for advice, not introductions.  Relationships, whether mine or yours, are far too precious to be exploited or taken lightly.  They require huge infusions of time, energy, and trust to build, yet can be destroyed overnight through a single bad referral or an introduction that goes awry.  So if you’re running around out there projecting even an ounce of entitlement in this respect, ditch it, and focus instead on “earning” quality introductions from those around you.

2)  Provide a compelling reason for the introduction

Another critical networking factor a lot of people overlook is that in many cases, even between two people who know each other well, the success of a referral isn’t automatic.  In many cases, your contact may need to “sell” the connection to a certain extent and explain why they’re passing your name along; otherwise, the introduction will seem random and the person on the receiving end will be less motivated to respond.  So if you were to come to me and ask for a referral, for example, I’d need to have a crystal-clear answer to the question “Why you, and why them?” in order to feel 100% comfortable moving forward.  What relevant reason can I pass along to my contact to get them excited to meet with you? What’s the relevance between your background and their wants, needs, or expertise?

There’s a world of difference, in other words, between somebody asking “Can you introduce me to your contact at The Gates Foundation?” and “Can you introduce me to your contact at the Gates Foundation, because I see that they’re working on an initiative there that is highly similar to one that I tackled for my last company…”

By helping your contacts in this capacity, and painting a clear picture about your reasons for requesting a particular referral, to a particular individual, you’ll get far better results.  All involve will benefit and it will make it much easier for folks to pass your name along and tee things up properly for success.  Frankly, too, this is also the reason I use the setting on LinkedIn that allows one to “hide” their contacts from casual browsing.  While people are still able to find anybody I may know in the system, and request an introduction, they need to do this using a specific “People Search” on the site (so they know what they’re looking for) instead of just flipping through a list of my contacts, at random, seeking targets of opportunity.

3)  Get coached on the right approach

When somebody offers to make an introduction, you should always ask them what method of contact would be most convenient and appropriate for the situation.  Would they be willing to call or e-mail the person on your behalf?  Would they prefer that you initiate things, instead?  Would going through a site like LinkedIn make sense, under the circumstances?  Different people have different preferences when it comes to communicating, so ask your contact to “coach” you on what method of approach will work best.  They are in a much better position than you are to know whether the referral target is somebody who lives and dies by e-mail — is a social networking site junkie — or is somebody who prefers the immediacy of a phone call.

As for myself, I almost always recommend the usage of LinkedIn when I make referrals, assuming that the two people in question are both linked to me on the system.  Not only does this put the ball in the court of the person requesting the favor to initiate things, but I also believe this approach warms the introduction up, since both parties can read each others’ profiles and get to know each other a little bit before the connection occurs.  Additionally, when an introduction request comes through LinkedIn, you know for absolute certain that the referring party is genuinely sponsoring the intro (since they have to approve it first) and you can also read whatever notes they attach to the message, explaining the reasons behind the referral.

4)  Forgive those who forget

Even the best of us make promises, at times, and then forget to carry them out.  Or we offer to facilitate an introduction, then procrastinate around it for weeks, until we get a nudge that tells us we need to make the referral a priority again.  So you should expect, in advance, that this is going to happen to you a few times during the course of your job search or business development efforts.

The key in these situations is to not get angry or take things personally, but to make a point to gently remind people, if necessary, that you’re still very interested in being granted the favor that they had initially offered.  Give them a few days to come through for you, and if no action seems to take place, touch base with them and tell them again how thankful you’d be if they could make the connection that you had talked about with them earlier.  Don’t embarrass them, don’t give them a guilt trip, and don’t imply that they’ve let you down in any way.  If anything, go the extra mile to make it as easy as possible for them to comply with your request.  Tell them that you’d be happy to call the person yourself, if they’re too busy, or to e-mail along some further thoughts or reasons as to why you think the connection would be highly productive.

5) Don’t get greedy; start with one solid referral and ace it!

Have you ever heard the old saying “pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered?”  When it comes to networking, you definitely don’t want to be perceived as a hog.  While people can certainly feel free to offer you multiple contacts of their own accord, it’s somewhat impolite to ask for more than one referral at a time, yourself — especially when you’re networking with people you’ve only known for a limited period of time.

So my advice when seeking referrals is to start by trying to earn one solid introduction from each of the people you know, and when that happens, make sure to pull out all the stops to “ace” the referral and convince them you’re a worthy person with whom to share additional names.  In terms of specific behaviors, this means that you should respect (i.e. not waste) the referral person’s time, be clear about your objectives, express gratitude for their help, and follow up with all parties, appropriately, to communicate the status of the referral discussion — as well as your ongoing appreciation.

At the end of the day, great networkers do whatever it takes to make the people they know look like superstars for passing their names along, and this creates both an unbeatable positive feedback loop and an incredibly solid platform for success, whether you’re a professional in transition or an aspiring entrepreneur!