Don't Just Network — Build Your 'Meaningful Network' to Maximise Your Impact

I don’t want to pass up the opportunity to share an article I read about networking. Here are a few highlights:

What ‘Meaningful Networks’ Look Like

Who are the people you personally care about, who in turn care about you? That’s your network. All opportunities for impact in your life will spring from the strength of those relationships. But, if you’re like most well-adjusted people, the word “networking” evokes images of awkward meet and greets, uninvited solicitations, and disingenuous interactions.

The way many people do it is gross. They get in touch out of nowhere in order to work an angle or ask for something under the guise of friendship. Too many people visualise their “network” as a list of names they can utilise to achieve an end goal. This is a mistake. You can do it differently — and when you do, you’ll have a powerful advantage.

If you want to build an effective network, you must focus on what you can do for other people, not what they can offer you. The way I think about it, everyone has four types of networks: Unfamiliar, Familiar, Intimate, and Meaningful. They’re nested concentric circles:

Your Unfamiliar and Familiar Networks are straightforward enough — people you don’t know at all and acquaintances you know a little, respectively. Your Intimate Network includes people you’ve gotten to know quite well. But your Meaningful Network is your true personal network of deep relationships and friendships. It’s your Meaningful Network that will make it possible for you to have the impact with your career and life that you desire.

There are three steps to welcoming more people into your Meaningful Network:

• Bringing people from your Unfamiliar Network into your Familiar Network by making initial contact and forming a connection.
• Bringing people from your Familiar Network into your Intimate Network by getting to know them well, understanding your commonalities, and finding ways you can be helpful to them.
• Bringing people from your Intimate Network into your Meaningful Network by investing in making their life better in an important way.

This is the only way to build real and lasting relationships. The help you provide others defines your impact and your life. When you take this approach, something fascinating happens: the relationships you build germinate over the years and come back to help you in unexpected, often life-changing ways. Here’s how to get started.

Unfamiliar → Familiar

This section is for people like me who find chatting up a stranger to be one of the most unnatural and uncomfortable acts in the world. Sadly, I spent years encountering people with fascinating and enriching knowledge, insights and experiences… and failing to get to know them. I have worked for years to develop a set of simple tools for connecting with others.

To make the giant leap with someone from Unfamiliar Network to Familiar Network, rely on these three acts:

1. Appear warm and friendly.

2. Initiate a brief but enjoyable conversation.

3. Remember the person’s name.

Familiar → Intimate

You now have a strategy for exuding friendliness, overcoming awkwardness, and making people comfortable. The more you do this, the easier it will become. Next, you have the opportunity to really get to know a subset of people with whom you’d like to have a closer connection.

Just about everyone gets this next part wrong. When faced with an interesting new person in our Familiar Network, we tend to make one of two fundamental mistakes. First, we talk about ourselves. We go into overdrive to convince them that we’re interesting and likable, too. Most of us have developed the ability to pivot any conversation back to ourselves. After 5-10 minutes of conversation, we know very little about our new friend.

Intimate → Meaningful

As you get to know people better, you can decide where you want to build lasting relationships. There is only one way I know of to bring someone into your Meaningful Network: You’re going to do something important for them.

Bringing someone into your Meaningful Network requires effort and genuine caring for that person. You need to take personal interest in their success. I’d like to suggest three ways you can help others, and in the process grow your Meaningful Network:

1. Share knowledge. Find areas of overlap in your sets of expertise and opportunities to share things you know another person will find illuminating. It can be as simple as relating an interesting and relevant insight that you know, emailing an article, or sending a book with a note. But it’s only useful when you’ve thought hard about it, and you’re sharing something that will be important to the other person.

2. Make connections. One of the best ways to help others in your network is to expand their respective networks. Put two people together who end up doing business or being friends and your impact compounds.

Early in your career, your network is relatively weak and requires effort to get started. Seek to get to know and be useful to folks who sit at important network center points.

3. Offer support and friendship. When you get a new job, a promotion, a big win or major recognition, you're at your most popular. Emails and tweets pour in congratulating you. Some are happy for you; others see your success as a possible opportunity for themselves. When things break the other way and you get passed over or have a failure, your inbox gets a lot quieter and you only hear from your true friends.

Make the decision now to be one of those true friends for others. People in your network need you when they’re struggling.

Remember that you’re building a network of people you really like and want to see succeed. The more you contribute to interactions, the more people will look forward to them, and the more likely they are to think of you when they need advice, help and so on. This is all basic stuff the average second grader knows, but somehow we all forget it.

Want to know more? Head on over to the full article here for more ideas and perspectives. Afterwards, why not drop me an email to share your thoughts at [email protected]; or call me on 0467 749 378.

Thanks,

Robert