Business Essentials: Networking Mistakes, Self-Promotion and Better Decision Making

29 Dec 2011

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The Business Essentials will be a weekly review of the best digital articles from Inc(.com). These articles represent a descent and inherent summary of all the necessary tools to become and aspiring, and hopefully inspiring, entrepreneur.

Networking Mistakes

1. Try to take before you give. The goal of networking is to connect with people who can help you make a sale, get a referral, establish a contact, etc. When we network, we want something.

But at first, never ask for what you want. In fact you may never ask for what you want. Forget about what you can get and focus on what you can provide. Giving is the only way to establish a real connection and relationship. Focus solely on what you can get out of the connection and you will never make meaningful, mutually beneficial connections.

When you network, it’s all about them, not you.

2. Assume others should care about your needs. Maybe you’re desperate. Maybe partnering with a major player in your industry could instantly transform red ink into black. No one cares. No one should care. Those are your problems and your needs.

Never expect others to respond to your needs. People may sympathize but helping you is not their responsibility. The only way to make connections is to care about the needs of others first. Ask how they’re doing. Ask what could help them.

Care about others first; then, and only then, will they truly care back.

3. Take the shotgun approach. Some people network with anyone, tossing out business cards like confetti. Networking isn’t a numbers game. Find someone you can help, determine whether they might (someday) be able to help you, and then approach them on your own terms.

Always select the people you want to network with. And keep your list relatively small, because there is no way to build meaningful connections with dozens or hundreds of people.

4. Assume tools create connections. Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections are great—if you do something with those connections. In all likelihood your Twitter followers aren’t reading your tweets. Your Facebook friends rarely visit your page. Your LinkedIn connections aren’t checking your updates.

Tools provide a convenient way to establish connections, but to maintain those connections you still have to put in the work. Any tool that is easy or automated won’t establish the connections you really need.

5. Reach too high. If your company provides financial services, establishing a connection with Warren Buffett would be great. Or say you need seed capital; hooking up with Mark Cuban would be awesome. Awesome and almost impossible.

The best connections are mutually beneficial. What can you offer Buffett or Cuban? Not much. You may desperately want to connect with the top people in your industry, but the right to connect is not based on want or need. You must earn the right to connect. Find people who can benefit from your knowledge and insight or your connections.

The “status” level of your connections is irrelevant. All that matters is whether you can help each other reach your goals.

Self-Promotion

1. Tell the story of the struggle behind the success. Great! You won an award or got funding or the like. Show how hard you worked and the obstacles you needed to overcome to achieve this milestone. It’ll soften the blow for those who are still in the middle of a struggle.
2. Be excited, but be humbled. It pays to throw an ‘aw shucks’ into a news broadcast. I’ve watched many peers do this brilliantly. “We just launched our beta. It’s really rough, but I’d love your feedback.”
3. Give credit where credit is due. When you are promoting, it helps to acknowledge the support and advice of people you are close with. “If it weren’t for those late-night chats, I would have never gotten through the rough parts.”
4. Enlist the help of your friends to get the word out. Maybe your friends are tired of hearing you talk incessantly about your start-up, but have you ever sat down with them to get them on board? Asking for help shows your friends that you need them.

Better Decision Making

1. Create two columns on your paper with room for a sentence or two at the top.

2. Label your first column “Driving Forces” and the second “Repelling Forces.” These represent what we call your toward and away values; the things that pull you toward something and those that push you away.

3. Above your columns write a sentence or two about the first decision that you need to make. For example: “Do I take the financial risk of hiring a sales person this year?”

4. Now, in your first column list all of the things that are driving you toward hiring a sales person.

5. In the second column list all of the reasons that are pushing you away from hiring a sales person. Include all of your fears, doubts and logical concerns.

6. Here’s where the weighing process comes in. When you are done with your lists go back and weigh each pro and con by giving it a rating between 1 to 10, with 10 being very strong and 1 being very weak. So one of your statements might look something like this:

Driving Forces: The person I have in mind for this job has a history of increasing sales for past employers by up to 300 percent. (I would give this a ten!)

Repelling Forces: This person wants an annual base pay of $50,000 plus 13 percent of all sales. I’m not sure I can afford this. What number would you give this statement? Since my statement shows uncertainty around my ability to pay the base wage, but there is a strong possibility that the new sales rep will bring an increase in sales within three months, I would give this a seven–hypothetically speaking.

7. Now add each column of numbers, placing your totals at the bottom of each side. Which column carries more weight? Voila! Your decision is made!