Care for your network
and keep it growing
A client I greatly respect wasn’t impressed by my ezine: Care for your network and keep it growing. I gave advice from great networkers who seem able to stay in touch with huge lists of contacts.
My client’s reaction was “well, duh!” She said that everybody knows about the importance of networking, and she objected to the term “networking” because the concept should really be about relationships. I understand her discomfort with the term “networking” and think we may need more than one word to describe different types of activity. Social scientists have long used the term “social network” to describe a complex pattern of relationships that tie people together. But recently “networking” has been used more broadly, to include marketing activities like passing out your business card to strangers, or using Twitter to build your business brand.
The point my ezine apparently didn’t drive home is that the foundation of your network should be a collection of real, authentic relationships with other people. [Read more…] about Tips from successful networkers