Networking...
Posted On: 2015-08-27
... it's great if you know how to do it but it can destroy you if you go about it the wrong way.
Back in 1998, when my partner and I decided to try our hand at making money from this crazy industry, we were living in a fairly quiet and conservative part of the country so we knew no one who was doing anything much online.
How quiet was it? Well we were about the second household in our state to be connected to ADSL.
So there we were, reading everything we could about building free sites and galleries and hanging out on all the message boards we could find just looking for the information we needed to make a start and not fall flat on our faces.
Back then there was a lot of information online and there were a lot more message boards than what there are these days and, thanks to some of the great people we met on those boards, we're still alive and kicking today. In fact we made friends on those message boards with people who are still our friends today.
We've never met them but we networked then and we're still networking and supporting one another years later and I don't see that changing any time soon.
We even met people in our own state, guys who lived not more than 10 miles from us, who were doing what we were doing, and we were able to help each other.
But of course it's not all rainbows and unicorns. We met people on some of the message boards who ripped us off. We met people who gave advice when they had absolutely no knowledge of what they were talking about.
We met people who were simply time wasters and we met people who wanted to take what little knowledge we had back then and give nothing in return.
And right there is the key to making networking work for you. I was listening to a very successful young entrepreneur yesterday who said that he is continually being approached by people who are constantly saying, "I need you to help me."
That's all they are interested in ... what others can do for them. They don't see networking as a two-way street. They are either too selfish or too self-centred to offer something in return for the help they're begging for or they don't think that they have something to offer in return.
But if you want people to help you; if you want networking to work for you, then you have to either make it a two-way street or make sure that the other person knows that you are ready to help them whenever they might need some help.
People respond positively to those who offer some value in return for advice and help because they see that the person who wants their help understands the value of that help. People who offer nothing in return quite often get nothing and sadly most of those people never understand why people won't help them.
So there are very positive outcomes for those who network and look for help in the right way but there is a downside to networking and you have to be careful not to fall into the networking trap.
Of course you can be taken in by the cheats and the people who make a lot of noise but basically haven't got a clue about any of the advice that they are trying to give you but the downside goes way beyond the obvious.
You can spend so much time networking that you don't actually get any real work done. You can spend so much time hanging out on the message boards looking for people to network with, and trying to look super attractive to others, that you don't get any work done.
Building a network takes time and you only do it by adding some value to the people who want to network with you. You don't build a network by hanging out on a message board and look desperate and dateless.
You can do that of course but if you're going to spend all your time looking for networking love then you're not going to get any work done.
Even when you have begun to network with others you have to be careful that you don't spend all your time on networking and none on actually working. That networking may seem valuable but if it is taking up all of your time then what is going to pay your bills or put food on your table?
It's the work that you produce from the information and knowledge that you have gained from networking that will make money for you but just spending all day networking is not going to do it for you.
So build your network but do it the right way, add value for the others in your network, and don't let your networking take control of your life.