Expanding your network

Last blog I talked about the best business development people I know being great networkers, so I thought I’d talk a bit more this week about expanding your network.

Despite social networking being all the rage – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook – I am not very keen on connecting to people I haven’t met. There is a concept called being an “open networker”. This is about making connections via social networks to as many people as you can (tens or hundreds of thousands). LinkedIn’s version of this is called being a LION.

I see the whole thing as being pointless in that the number of records in a database somewhere that refer to me has little if no impact on me and calling them “friends” is just plain silly if you don’t know or care about these people. I am, however a big user of these social networks, as they allow me to efficiently communicate with the people I already know, plus expose me to new and interesting people to meet.

But when expanding my network, there are a number of things I like to do. I tend to think they are obvious, but I have been assured that they are not, as people do get stuck in ruts. Stuff that I like includes:

Going to functions in my industry where I can gain knowledge (networking only is soulless). I note that if this is your thing, then get yourself on the committee running the show as you are guaranteed to meet more people, interesting people and it’s a great credibility thing to do. Just remember though you are more likely to network with the same competitors, over and over again.
Going to functions where potential clients will go. I vastly prefer to do this than hang out with competitors.
Going to functions that pique my interest. It’s easy to develop a relationship with people when you are both passionate about the same thing.
Arranging functions to discuss issues that I find of interest. Nothing better than a good discussion over dinner with people you barely know and lots of wine to help flesh out some issues! I have spoken about this in previous blogs.
Getting involved in volunteer work. You’d be surprised who you run into. For me, I do a lot of work volunteering at my children’s school and have been surprised by the number of truly interesting people I have met, digging muck out of drains.
Speaking to strangers. I just can’t let an opportunity in an elevator go by. If nothing else it helps you get over the jitters of speaking to a stranger.

My rule of thumb when meeting new people is that 95% of them are probably feeling conflicted – afraid of speaking to strangers, but desperately wanting to meet new people. Groups of people chatting are generally just groups of the same who are massively relieved they don’t have to start a new conversation with a stranger. Therefore when I say “hi” to someone new – they are probably really happy I did just that.

So by now you’re probably thinking “you need to be a bit discerning though – you don’t want to meet just anyone”. Unfortunately, I disagree and would like to give you some recent(ish) examples.

I have been dismissed by a politician as she thought because of the circumstances of our meeting, her party had my vote and my donation. Turns out that they only had my donation.
I have chatted to a housewife who turned out to have previously been a director of a public company with a workforce of over 10,000 – who decided to take a couple of years off to spend quality time with her small children, but was still really well-connected.
I have chatted to cleaners who have given me free tickets to sporting events where their cousin was playing.

The thing is, it turns out that everyone in your network has value, either directly or through their own networks. But more on that next week.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club, Flinders Pacific and L2i Technology Advisory. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia and Vietnam. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.