Strategic Networking - What you know may be useful but who you know is what opens the doors.

I was asked, when did you realise the power of strategic networking?

This was my answer.?

Eight or nine months after I had partially recovered from two gunshots in the Civil War in Sierra Leone in the mid 90s, I was still physically and emotionally fragile and I needed some extra medical attention so I chose to return to the United States where I had received most of my military training. I reached out to one of my mentors - a US Army officer who had overseen my progress at the United States Military Academy. When I met with him, he asked me: “what do you want to do?” I said, “I want to go back to school and do my Masters. I don’t feel I have recovered emotionally enough from my war trauma to enter the work environment right now.” He said, “what do you need to make this happen?”?

"$35,000"

I had already received an admission to Cornell University based on an exam I had taken in my undergrad days. The only catch was that Cornell University needed $35,000 for my masters program in at that time I barely could put together $300 much more $35,000. And my mentor,?Colonel McDannell said to me, “Let me think and I’ll get back to you.”?

A week later, he called me and said, “I want you to meet me at the dockyard at West Point; there is a dinner party going on” and I said, “sure.” When we went to that dinner party, he met me outside and before we went on the boat he said, “this party is being put together by a gentleman by the name of Jim Irwin who runs an international consulting company and he’s basically using this event to do fundraising for the football stadium.” None of this made a lot of sense to me but I said “yes sir”. He continued, “There’ll be a couple of big wigs and I’ll find time to introduce you to them. But just hobnob around and because you are a Westpoint grad like most of them are, they’ll be interested to know what you are doing...let them know that you are the latest war veteran." I said, "yes sir.”

For the most part of the evening, that’s what happened. A couple of people came around. And these were senior executives. Most of them were former graduates; one of them was the CEO of an insurance company, another was the co-founder of America Online et cetera. Most of them asked me what I was doing and what I wanted to do. Per my mentor‘s instruction I shared with them what I wanted to do and that was to go to school. And he had told me,?“don’t be shy about saying that you want to go to school.” A couple of them asked me, “well are you going to go?” I said "I’m not sure, I need the money for the school". By the end of that evening, I had three job offers and two offers to simply give me the money outright. The sixth offer was an offer from Jim Irwin. He said "I’ll give you the money but then when you’re done you have to work for me."?

After getting advice from Col McDannell, I took the Irwin offer. I attended Cornell University and got my masters and then worked for Irwin's company.?But what that evening taught me was the value of two things;

1. Know where you are going and what you want and don't be shy about stating it.?
2. Build relationships with the people who have the resources (financial, experience, relationships) you need to get you where you want to go.?

Leveraging my mentor’s relationships and my ability to communicate what I needed and where I was going, resulted in these opportunities being presented to me.?

That’s when I learnt that when it comes to getting where you want to get to fast, what you know is useful but who you know is what opens the doors.