There’s little more important than building relationships to personal and business success. One of the avenues to achieve this goal is networking. Thus, I thought a few tips might be in order:
- Integrity – based on my experience and according to a survey of a dozen executives, integrity tops the list.
- Who – are you just networking to socialize? Or are you consciously thinking about your networking counterparts?
- Value – are you continually thinking about how to provide value? Don’t think about what you’ll get; instead, wrack your brain to think of how you can provide value to your networking contacts.
- Object of interest – it’s important to be an object of interest, as no one wants to network with someone who is invisible. Be a thought leader. Be contrarian. Take a stand.
- Stop talking – don’t talk incessantly about you and what you do; instead ask questions and listen.