Episode 2
with Simone Douglas
In this episode of Confident Networker, Simone talks about how to look at your networks objectively and identify the gaps.
Chris Irving 0:02
Welcome to the confident networker with your host, Simone Douglas. In each insightful episode, she chats with one of the leading people from the BNI, and business world.
Simone Douglas 0:15
Today, we’re talking networking through the generations, and what you need to know. So multi generational networking can be challenging. As with networking with different personality types, when you’re networking outside your generation, it is important that you don’t make it about you. If you’re going to make friends, then you need to meet people where they’re at within reason. To be clear, if someone is being really sexist or racist, then you don’t want to network with them anyway. In fact, I turned down a very large contract with a client once for that reason, it’s not worth selling your soul for; eventually, the dinosaurs will die. And that’s okay. However, we’re not talking about dealing with dinosaurs. Here, we’re talking about the different ways that different generations deal with things. I’m in my mid 40s, which makes me part of Generation X. To work through the list you are likely to encounter in networking situations, we’ve got the Baby Boomers, Generation X, the millennials, and Generation Z. It’s easy to get distracted by all the noise in the business world at large. But jump day is your chance to settle in and work on your business – and this season, on your networks – in ways that allow you to make the most of your opportunities today, tomorrow and forever. So buckle up, because it’s time to take an objective look at whether or not you are truly the centre of influence or playing in the outfield when it comes to networking through the generations. The purpose of today’s show, is to give you some insight into the preferred communication, things that are important to the different generations and why (as well as how) you connect. So this is one not to miss. People will come in and out of your life all the time. The key, is to keep in mind that a person always matters. It’s not about what they can offer you. They matter in and of themselves, because they’re human beings. When you understand this, then you understand that every person is worth your time and that your time is not more valuable than theirs. This is really the key to building relationships where you become the centre of influence for your networks. So if we look at the key issues from an owner perspective, first up: “am I connecting with my networks in ways that build influence over time?” Regardless of where you live and work, there are amazing people to meet and connect with; people who can add so much value in your life. Opportunities to connect with others present themselves to us literally every day. So, what if you knew that someone you’ll meet today was going to have a significant impact on the rest of your life? Considering this question as I go about my day to day interactions, reminds me to always be at my best. And that philosophy, in itself, can be life changing. When you bring your best to everything you do, good things invariably happen to you, both personally and professionally. You should never underestimate the importance of your first impression on others. Treat every single person you meet with respect and dignity, and think of every interaction you have with others as either giving energy or sapping energy. Did the people you met yesterday feel more energy after meeting you? Did you create a space where they felt seen and heard? Or did you dismiss someone without meaning to, and cut them down in some way? This is very easy to do when you throw different generational attitudes and expectations into the mix. And we need to think about “who should I be networking with differently?” So don’t miss that opportunity. Introduce yourself, learn their name, ask three questions that aren’t about selling to them, exchange contact info, send a note of acknowledgement. The seeds of a relationship are planted in this way. Most importantly, don’t disappear after the first meeting, the second, or the third; find ways to add value in their life and you can grow your connection. Repeat this process daily and you will inevitably build an amazing network of power and influence, which is what we’re all about. We need to think about whether or not we’re providing real value to my networks; building an invaluable network takes time and takes effort. It helps to build a strong reputation for yourself. You may not realise it, but if you’re constantly asking too much from the people in your network, you can make yourself out to look like the greasy salesperson, self important, or worse – money grubbing. It’s important to know how to add value to the people around you. Your network should never be viewed as the hoarding of contacts with you reaping all the benefits. When you become the immediate source of contribution, your value rises immediately. View this as the power of building a strong community; it outweighs quality over quantity. Support your own success by creating a way for the people around you to be successful as well. You never know how the individuals you helped will contribute to your life (personally or professionally). The end goal when building your circle of influence is to be in service. So act as the connector or the creator for others. Connecting to individuals in your community should take only a limited amount of time from your schedule, realistically, but can help build someone’s business and create a lasting relationship as a trusted resource for you, with others. More than anything, the joy that you receive through being in service to others, from my experience, is the ultimate form of accomplishment and happiness. All of this is much easier if you have people of influence at all stages of life within your direct circles. And that takes, like I said, time and attention. From here, we really need to think about the important question “do my networks have the breadth and diversity I need to really find success?” Our generational perspective contributes to the mental models we hold about ourselves, the world, and the way things should be. These beliefs create blind spots that can become our undoing as we pursue our values and seek to accomplish our goals. Likewise, they can have a powerful effect on our culture. This is why it is important to find and build connections with people across the different generations to ensure that you have an enhanced and balanced perspective and worldview. It also allows us to make the most of what we are doing and where we’re going. So active professional networking is vital to career growth. Many shudder when they hear the term networking; associating it with awkwardness, cheesy events, and the idea of selling yourself. However, despite its off-putting connotations, networking is actually about building long term relationships as well as a good reputation over time. It involves meeting and getting to know people who you can assist, and who can potentially help you in return. Good networking has a basis of trust and support and can mean the difference between a mediocre career and a phenomenal career. The purpose of today’s show is to give you an understanding of just some of the inherent ways our different generations communicate and network, as well as what contributes to their worldview. By having a better psychological understanding of your existing networks, fallback positions, and irritations and applying some logic to how you engage them moving forward, you’ll be in a great position to build these networks and strengthen them in 2021. So today, we’re going to evaluate the different generations and what’s important rather than just what’s important to you. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the world of seriously social sales and marketing, where relationships will lead to sales. If you’re a returning listener, thanks for being a part of my seriously social Global Business family. So we’re going to start first up, with just a little bit of a snapshot. I want you to get out a pen and a piece of paper, hopefully, you’re sat at a desk somewhere, and if not, come back to this exercise and re listen to it on the podcast on our app. But have a think about your immediate circle of influence and the networks that are available to you. And what I mean by that is I want you to break it down into the different generations. So how many, (what percentage) of your network would you say was over 60, you know, was over 40, was over 20? All of those different segments and start to get a sense of where your big gaps are. So I suppose the thing to consider is, if you don’t have let’s say you’re older, and you don’t have Generation Z and millennials in your networks, per se, or you have very limited number of them, you’re missing the opportunities that come from people who are really driven and in the startup mode of business and career. So these are people who want to learn, want to make the most of the opportunities that are available to them. And if you’re not engaging with those people in the business landscape, then these are missed opportunities for you. By a proxy, if you’re sitting in the millennial or Gen Z generation, and you don’t have x’s and boomers in your networks, or don’t have a reasonable amount of them or the opportunity to network with them, you’re missing out on the same opportunities in a different way. So now we’re going to take a short break. And when we return, we’re going to get into the detail and what we really need to be looking at in order to successfully start having clarity on just where our multi generational network is at and what we need to do next. So what do you need to know?
Let’s start with the boomers. Okay. Boomers are at the stage in life and in business where you can expect them to have reached a certain level of comfort. They’re fairly unapologetic and fairly uninterested most of the time. This means that you have to earn the right to be heard. When you’re dealing with boomers, you need to have stories. They’re going to ask you who you’ve worked with, they want to know your track record and why they need to talk to you. As you’re not part of their inner circle. The amount of time that they will be prepared to give their attention to you will be limited So you need to be able to succinctly list your credentials and capture their attention. A close friend of mine, Michael owns and alarm company. He’s lovely. He’s also the most politically incorrect man you will ever meet in your life, but he means no harm. When I say politically incorrect, I don’t mean awful or discriminatory. Just to be clear, Michael and I met at a networking lunch where we were seated next to one another, he quickly adopted me because I could hold an interesting conversation. This turned into introductions to politicians, and a number of other high powered figures. Michael is one of those guys who has everyone’s phone number. If he rings, the premier of South Australia, then they take his call. He knows everybody. He’s been around forever, but he’s no dinosaur. He is simply very unapologetic about who he is. And I hope he never dies. The first thing that Michael did was to tell me his track record for sitting next to pretty young things and not getting in trouble was not particularly high. I responded that my track record of sitting next to older gentleman and not speaking my mind, was equally low. He told me that he liked people who spoke their mind. So when you pay attention to how someone engages you, then you can meet them there. Michael calls a spade a spade and has a very tongue in cheek sense of humour, and zero filter. So if you want to carry a conversation with him, you have to be the same. Getting comfortable with being a networking chameleon means understanding when humour is part of the dialogue. And when it’s not. Every generation has a slightly different language. It’s not only in terms of the words used, it’s also in terms of what is and isn’t considered to be okay, understanding how to speak or at least how to translate these different languages, opens up all kinds of opportunities. Respect to boomers means that you don’t cut them off in the middle of a sentence. As a rule, the younger we get, the more we tend to talk over the top of other people. And it’s also important to repeat back to them what they have said, so that you seek clarification and understanding this is a good active listening technique across all generations. But it’s particularly important with baby boomers. And finally, thank them for their time. Time is a boomers most valuable asset, it sounds really morbid, but technically, they’re moving towards the end of their lives. And so as a direct result of this, they place more of a premium on how they spend the time they have left. This isn’t a conscious thought. But the older you get, the more important how you spend your time becomes, you don’t have to sit silent in the face of something you disagree with. In fact, doing so is not helpful to us as individuals, it’s more important that you voice your opinion, if you can voice your opinion in a respectful way and own it, which means that you don’t need them to have the same opinion, then you can actually learn a lot of respect from boomers. At the end of the day, it comes down to being a person of your word when it comes to this generation. They respect old school effort, picking up the phone and calling a boomer that you have met an event is going to have far greater cut through than flicking them a text or a Facebook message. Now a different story as we move through the generations. But understanding that about them means that you can cultivate a relationship on their terms. Now, that doesn’t make them more important than you. It’s just a fact of life. If you’re the one that’s trying to make friends, you’re gonna need to meet them where they’re at, the more people you make friends with, the more successful your business becomes, if ever, I need an introduction to anyone that’s well established in businesses from that generation. These days, I have dozens of people who I can pick up the phone and ring and they’re bound to have some kind of connection with the person that I want to speak to. That’s why we go through these things to learn the skills is to get what we want long term, okay, through a really robust network. Now when it comes to Generation X, networking with generation X’s can be difficult. What’s happened with Generation X is that we grew up in a world where the majority of professionals work nine to five jobs. As we were growing up when you walked out of the office, you didn’t check your emails because you weren’t on your phone. They were on your computer at work. You might not even have had a mobile if you did, your clients weren’t calling you on it after 5pm and they didn’t call or email before 9am So work started and finished at a reasonable time and then you had your downtime and family time. The challenge now is that work doesn’t stop you can send emails from anywhere at any time and because you can people do you can also send messages across different platforms so your social and business worlds blend together and all of this means it’s really hard to switch off. On top of this generation X have been told that they can have anything and everything that they want. Gen X are told they can have a balanced family life be the perfect parents be well read have perfect children be successful in business. They beautifully groomed and go to the gym several times a week so that we are all perfectly toned. So in a nutshell, Gen X’s are stressed They’re in overwhelm. When you meet them at a networking event, it might be the third event they have attended that week. This means you need to connect with them in a way that mitigates some of that stress. When you’re networking with Gen X’s, it’s about being real. They want to have authentic conversations about things that matter to them. Depending on the personality type, that topic of conversation will be different. But it always needs to be real. The easiest way to talk to Gen X’s is to talk about challenges, not problems, problems take you into dangerous territory, because they open the doors to negativity. On the other hand, by asking what the biggest challenges are that they currently face in their business and exploring how you can help, you can make a genuine connection. A lot of Gen X’s are trying to be good corporate citizens, and human citizens. So talking about what they’re doing outside of work is always a good way of building the foundations of a relationship. Authentic is the word of this generation, even so, you can pretty much split the generation right down the middle between those who are authentic, and those who sell hard in a way that they began doing in the 1980s. And which they’ve never moved on from. Those people are slick, their game is smooth, which is the opposite of authentic, they will ask you textbook questions, they’ve read all the books, all the articles and all the blogs, rather than talking to you about what your challenges are, they will look for weak spots that they can then fix. With Baby Boomers you’re in or you’re out. If you can hold your own at a networking event, then you’re in Gen X’s have a circles of trust, and it takes a long time to get to the inner circle, where you get to poke around in people’s weak spots. With Gen X’s. If you’ve just met someone at a networking event, then you are going to be on the outside of all of those circles of trust. If you can hold your own thing, congratulations, you may move on to the next circle. However, you still have a long way to go. Gen X’s are a lot more distrustful than the baby boomers that came before us. The Internet hadn’t got to them in the same way. For Gen X’s you need to prove whether you’re real or whether you’re fake news, then we move on to the millennials, the criticism often levelled at millennials is that they have an overwhelming sense of entitlement. And the truth is that everybody does. It’s just that we’re more comfortable with our sense of entitlement than the way Millennials choose to communicate. There’s some Millennials are already business leaders because the internet has enabled people to start and grow businesses much more rapidly today than they were able to 20 years ago. If you can’t speak to millennials and engage them in a way that builds the relationship, then you’re in trouble. Unless you’re incredibly rich and about to retire, in which case congratulations to you. And you probably don’t need to be listening to this show. For everybody else. Understanding how to communicate and build relationships with millennials is crucial to your success. So aside for the millennials already business leaders, millennials are also your employees or creating startups that are going to go somewhere and achieve things, no matter which bucket they fall into. Millennials have their own networks. And so they matter to you business. They care about things differently and prioritise things differently from the generations that came before them. They do have similarities to those preceding generations in that there is the same divide between the slick burn and churn operators who just want to get what they want. And those who are looking to form relationships and build networks, they still need to make those assessments. But once you’ve weeded out the slick operators, millennials are interested in whether or not you’re a good human being. They’re attracted to success. They want to ask you questions, and they want to be mentored, which is fair enough. We were all mentored at some stage and we can easily forget that. So if you think about it, when you’re networking with millennials, it is good to take a mentoring approach without being condescending. This is the other mistake people make as a member of an older generation, it’s easy to come across as arrogant. When you’re speaking to someone from a younger generation. This happens because when people talk about what they’ve done, and what they’ve achieved, without talking about the backstory of pain that went along with it, you’re cutting out half the story. So if you’re talking to millennials, the level of your current success is not nearly as interesting to them as how you got to where you are. Millennials who are business owners and who’ve taken that leap of faith are excited and colourful, they need to be encouraged, you can provide that encouragement by telling them the stories of your peaks and troughs, and explaining how you got out of the troughs. Every business has cyclical pain, and it’s never fun when you’re at the bottom of that cycle. However, if you’re still in business, then it means you found a way to get out of it. So tell them the stories about how you ate the frogs. Talk to millennial business owners about things that are relevant to them such as how finding the right people to hire can be really difficult for any company. Tell them something that you were told pass on them wisdom down the line. Tell them that no one is ever truly ready and you just need to leap. Tell them to hire slowly and fire fast. Tell them all the cliches that are so familiar to you but will probably be new to them. Above all, talk to them about their dreams, millennials want to talk about their dreams, they don’t want to talk about goals, often you’ll find their businesses have some kind of social impact. So ask them about that and learn their vernacular. So we’re going to take a very short break before we come back to talking about Generation Z. And we’ll get back to business after a very short break.
As we covered in the last segment, boomers through to Gen X’s, and millennials, we’re now finishing off with Generation Z, this generation is only just beginning to step out into the world. So they may not seem that relevant in a networking context. But it won’t be long before they’re establishing themselves in the business world. So knowing how to communicate with them is equally important. The challenge we have with Generation Z is that they have grown up on smartphones. So although it is a gross generalisation, there is some truth in saying that their social skills are not particularly honed in the way that we understand social skills. From an older generations perspective, they have their own set of social skills that they can apply within their generation. But in terms of communicating outside their generation, it can present challenges on both sides. For example, Generation Z won’t answer their phone to you just because they can see you’re calling them, they’ll wait for you to send a message or leave a text, and then they’ll text you back. But they won’t necessarily speak to you on the phone, which can be quite challenging. If you’re the generation that likes to do things face to face, one on one and over the phone. In a face to face networking environment, they are still enthusiastic in the same way Millennials are. However, the trick with Generation Z is to make them feel comfortable. Ask them good questions, and let them feel like they’re involved spotlight them a little bit. But don’t keep the spotlight on them in a group environment for too long. Let them be seen and heard, but then move on and let them absorb the conversation that’s happening around them. If you’re looking at building that relationship, then take the time to flick them a text and an email or LinkedIn message. Let them know that it was a pleasure to meet them and tell them that you particularly liked a comment they made or something along those lines, it’s really important, again, that you acknowledge that there is important as everybody else that was in the room, okay. By doing this, he make them feel important. We all like external validation, particularly from people whose opinions we value, Generation Z and the millennials do communicate in a different way to Generation X and the baby boomers, they will show you something on their phone that they like that is representative of them. Whether it’s a video, a post or a meme, it can feel quite strange to have someone bring their phone into a conversation if you’re not used to it. This is because it feels as though they’re not engaging. But they are, it’s just a different way of engaging Gen Z also don’t necessarily expect a response to their communication beyond an lol or a thumbs up to a Gen exa or a boomer, this can seem rude, where’s the reply? But to the younger generations, if they know you’ve seen their message and maybe acknowledged it, that’s enough. After all, Facebook tells everyone when a message has been read anyway, if they do reply to your messages, then the replies can often be quite brief, whereas Generation X and baby boomers will tend to go into more detail. The younger generations will often only write a few words, they’re not really looking for a conversation, they don’t really believe in superfluous communication. On the other hand, they’re still learning about how to edit their thoughts. Knowing how to deliver a considered response is a skill that needs to be taught. The internet is not really the place to learn this skill, and it’s not taught in school. So as an employer, it’s important that we pass this knowledge on to our staff members as we’re bringing them into the networking environment, they need to know the impact of opening their mouth and saying exactly what they think the impact of this is to make the other person feel shut down. Sometimes, this in turn will mean that the person that they shut down no longer wants to engage with them, so it doesn’t warm the relationship up. So this is just something to really be aware of when you’re working with these generations. So what is it that we actually need to do? I suppose we need to start by asking ourselves the question, where do I need to adapt and change my communication style now, so evaluate how you engage with your networks across the generations and maintain that contact? Start to look vertically at your networks. For example, consider the age experience and institutional longevity that exist and who exerts influence where take the time to collect some concrete data about the needs of the people within your networks now and in the future. For example, get facts about potential knowledge loss from retirement skill sets in younger members and key motivators of those in a position to advance in and enter organisations of relevance. Pay attention to generational diversity issues so you can address the bias says and create credible opportunities to overcome these and to learn. For example, make sure that you connect the information about what matters to your wider networks to the organisational goals of your business for the future, and address the skill sets needed within your business in training and development programmes to ensure that your sales teams can network effectively encourage intergenerational relationships by creating opportunities for project collaboration, focused conversation and mentoring. Consider taking time to identify areas of strength, challenge and compatibility, for example, implement a valid mentoring programme in recognition that it takes leaders to develop leaders this might mean creating a programme to train mentors first, it can be informal or formal. But some of the best learning experiences that I’ve had that have formed the most solid relationships have been when I have happily given of my time, to people younger or older than me in a way that offers real value. So consider that then you need to bridge the generation gap by meeting people where they’re at without sacrificing your own values. So to get really clear on this, our generational perspective contributes to the mental models that we hold about ourselves, the world and the way things should be. These beliefs, like I said earlier, create blind spots that can become our undoing as we pursue our values and seek to accomplish our goals. They also have that powerful effect on our culture. The generational mental models held by baby boomers are clouded by the assumption that others see the world as they do. This is a typical perspective of powerful and dominant generations who have had such a massive impact on the culture are often unaware of how that impact is experienced by other generations. So a prominent mental model shared by many boomers, not all many, is the tendency to view the rebellious era of their youth as the generations greatest contribution. There is a sense in which boomers still view themselves as children, rather than the adult leaders and authorities that they are. There’s self immersion in the glories of the past in which boomers questioned authority and waged adolescent wars against the man stands in stark contrast to the fact that today, they are the establishment. The systematic impact of this reality is profound if the collective attention of the leading generation appears to be focused on youthful notions of a time long gone, then who is attending to the present reality and the responsibilities of leading for the future? Certainly, some individuals are doing so. But at the macro level, from the perspective of a younger and older generations looking on, boomers have all the positional and cultural power to affect change for the future. Yeah, as a generation overall, they appear fixated on preserving their youth focused on competitive one upmanship, mired in intractable positions, and in attentive to what is required for long term sustainability. So such a perspective has really eroded the trust, respect and confidence in Buma leadership for argument’s sake, in colours the mental models of younger generations. This isn’t about the single person that you meet. This is the generation as a whole, it’s important to understand that you shouldn’t have all boomers with the same psychedelic brush. The mental models held by x generation are clouded by distrust and pessimism. As a less dominant and younger generation. They’re naturally attuned to hypocrisy, and use any evidence of it to justify their cynicism and detachment. So being disconnected from their own collective power. A mental model, common to many exes, is the perception of themselves as loners who are on their own, and have little in common with those outside their intimate circles. As a result, most exes see no point in activism and the sparing of institutional change. Rather, they prefer private solutions to public issues, and seek to improve the quality of life within their own small sphere of influence. So just understand that everyone has their own generational bias. And the more that you understand what those biases are, the better you can work within them. You also need to interrogate your networks diversity and identify how you can start filling the gaps. So pews research breakdown of the generations from largest to smallest workforce and segments, says that millennials or Gen Y’s born through 1981 to 96 makeups 35% of the workforce. The oldest members of this cohort turned 39. Recently, Gen X born 1965 through to 1980 accounts for 33% of the workforce. So millennials and Gen X have the lion’s share, then we move to Baby Boomers, who represent 25% of the workforce, the oldest of which turns 74. And then finally, Gen Z, Gen Z are only accounting for 5% of the workforce right now with the oldest turning 23 this year. So just how many people do you have in each of these cohorts? And how often do you create opportunities for them to mingle with each other Understanding that a robust network has all of these cohorts, and you can access all of them when required, then we need to keep climbing the mountain and documenting different ways to create those one on one opportunities. Work on understanding the four main generations in contemporary workplaces and networks use this as a tool for understanding differences in how people think and act. In professional situations and at networking events. Ensure your communication is effective for and respectful towards everyone. From a generational perspective, remember to be clear about when and how you value everyone’s contribution. And identify where you can help each generation recognise what others contribute and build trust and respect between members of your network in spite of their differences. So in doing all of these things, you can then actually build that robust network the mistake older generations often make when networking with millennials, for argument’s sake, is to assume they don’t have anything to offer. But you’ll learn something from every conversation you ever have. Everyone has something to offer. And I some great young startup business owners who I met four or five years ago, and they’re now wheeling and dealing on the global stage with connections I would give my right arm for. I also know some semi retired, you know, business owners, who have been key contributors to my success. So because I took the time to build relationships with them, when I invite them to a lunch, they’re happy to come. And if they have one of their high flying clients in town, then they’re happy to bring them along to you don’t know where the relationships are going. So you need to nurture them all. So we’re now going to take a short two minute break. And when we return, we’ll finish by going through why you bother with any of this and the impact it has on the long game of business and life.
Today, we’re talking networking through the generations and what you need to know. So we’re at the pointy end of the hour. And it’s time to set yourself some homework to ensure you have a handle on where you’re going and what it is that you’re trying to do. We’ve covered off today on the realities of multi generational networking, the different generations bias, and to a degree, their preferences, men, now it’s time to evaluate all of it with a bit more of a personal focus. And what I mean by that is, you need to spend some time actually asking yourself, am I the glue in my networks? Or am I the flaky bits on the outside? So one of the challenges I think that we often have in business and in life is that we have competing demands all of the time. And those competing demands sometimes mean that we default to efficient rather than effective, so efficient, rather than effective looks a little bit like this. I had an email this morning from a business contact who was following up on something that they wanted to know. And they are a millennial. And so it was very brief, there was very little detail, it was quite Curt, and vastly open to interpretation. So that was efficient, they’d tick the box, they’d send off the things wasn’t particularly effective, because I read it and had to apply context myself. And as the Gen X. That context may not have been the context that the person sending, it actually wanted me to reply. So this is a really good example of you know, defaulting to your preferred communication style. So if my preferred communication style is to have a conversation on the phone, when it’s a difficult conversation,
then you know, the smart people that know me will pick up the phone. Likewise, though, understanding that this person that sent me the email, their default communication style is email. In fact, I think I’ve only ever spoken to them on the phone twice in the eight years that I’ve known them. So I just sent them an email back as simple and as equally bullet point as the one that they sent me. But you know, sometimes you need to pick up the phone. Also, what I want you to do is have a look like however think I know, it’s the start of the year. So we’re really only just getting back into networking, all of my BNI chapters are back this week, you know, having their meetings and starting their structured networking in earnest for 2021. But have a think at the about the people that you’ve met is the 20th of January. So in the last three weeks, since January, how many people have you met not necessarily for a business meeting? Maybe you met them at a barbecue? Maybe you met them at a Christmas lunch? You know, when you met them? What was your plan for follow up? If you categorise them into the different generations, where did they fall? And have you found them on LinkedIn? Have you sent them an email or rang them and asked for an opportunity to reconnect with them? You know, one of the things that I did that worked best for me very early on so I’m going back my be, you’d have to be eight years ago now. So I would have been early 30s. back then. And I met this gentleman, Mark Cahoon, who’s a mover and shaker in the South Australian business scene, it’d be like my friend, Michael, he knows everybody. And he used to host all of these lunches, but I actually saw him speak at somebody else’s lunch that I’d attended. And he talked about the fact that, you know, in life, it’s the people that put in the effort that really stand out. And that, you know, the people who pick up the phone and make a phone call are always going to get his time. And I took note of that, and was really impressed by the other things he was saying at the time. And so I rang him, I, you know, did some Googling, I found his phone number, and I called him and I said, Mark, I was really impressed by what it was that you had to say about putting in the effort to build relationships. And I’m wondering, he also said that you never lunch alone, you know, can I take you for lunch. And so, again, Boomer generation, he was impressed by the fact that I listened that I paid attention to what it was that he said that I wanted to learn more from him. So he made himself available for lunch. And that lunch turned into me getting invited to a number of his events, you know, current leaders meet future leaders, he introduced me to a lot of his business connections, and a host of other things that I’ve been able to do with him. And that was my first kind of eye opener when it came to actually building relationships over time. Now I’ve taken what I learned from him, and I’ve adapted it to my own way of doing things as you do. But that means now that I host a not a boardroom lunch every month, I host a dinner for the driven every month, and I have a really simple rule that I try to never lunch alone. So I’m always available, always happy to make myself available to catch up with people. I’m going to eat lunch anyway. And in fact, by having a lunch meeting with someone, it means that I actually stopped and ate because with three businesses, I don’t know about you guys, but it gets busy. And so we need to make the most of those things. So when you thinking about how you network, ask yourself the question, Where have you set time in your diary to put in the effort. So you know, I have networking, follow up time set in my diary. So it means that I can send off that quick email or message to say thank you, if you are that person, and you’re connecting on LinkedIn with someone because you met them at an event, when you send that connection request, actually put some effort into the message and say, you know, I was really interested in what you were saying about topic X, Y, or is it you know, I’d be keen to catch up and just get to know each other better or further. Business Networking is really no different to dating in a lot of respects. Okay, so over time, you have to earn your stripes. So that takes effort, you need to show up regularly. The other thing that you need to consider is where have I lost touch with networks that I should have maintained. And this is often the case, we you know, as we grow and discover things in business, and we change where we sit in the playing field, sometimes we let networks that were really powerful for us once fall away. And what we’re also doing is letting the opportunities that those networks provided fall away. Because you never know, who knows who who they’ve met on the journey along the way through, if you’ve lost touch with someone in the last four years, or you’ve been a bridge, if you rebuild that bridge, it’s always interesting where the referrals come from, you don’t have a great example of this as a woman who did some coaching with me, you know, four or five years ago, on social media marketing, she did a whole programme. She’s working for a construction company at the time. And then she went out on her own consulting as a marketer. So you know, in theory, you know, direct competition or competition of a sort. And so we kind of lost touch, she, you know, declined a number of invitations, I stopped inviting her one of those kinds of things, but we were still connected on Facebook and on LinkedIn, other places. And I saw that she’d landed a new job. So now she’s working full time. So, you know, consulting isn’t for everybody, let’s be honest. So she’s now working full time for a major company in construction, again, with different type of company. And she messaged me the other day asking me a really simple question. Like, what kind of lights do I need to set up for, you know, filming, and having a digital marketing agency, I sent the link to the ones I bought from Amazon. And she goes are thanks so much for that we really need to catch up for a glass of wine. And I said, Absolutely, we do. And then off the back of that she goes, Oh, by the way you sell for tomorrow’s gonna get a call from this company. I’ve referred them to you. You know, they need x, y and Zed and that’s how relationships work. You don’t know which person is going to be able to generate your next piece of business. So you don’t build the relationships in order to generate that business necessarily, that’s the happy byproduct of being a good networker. So if we can do that, that’s, that’s where it’s at. So remember that we have different values. Now, there are some people out there who still use those 80s techniques, I could do it if I didn’t care about where I was going, or what I was building. But your focus needs to be on making friends, building community and getting to know people, and having that depth and breadth of network. So having the stories to help connect people to people in ways that are mutually beneficial. Remember, in doing so life becomes easy, and business becomes easier. That’s where we’re trying to go. Next week’s show, we’re going to cover how to stand up and stand out without being an oxygen thief. Okay, the importance of listening to build relationships, and how to ask intelligent questions that aren’t just about opening doors to talk about yourself. So we’ll be covering off on all of that in a way that allows you to have a high degree of emotional intelligence. Now, it’s particularly important in sales, and relationship based selling. So if you have a sales team, I recommend that you make sure that you let them know this show will be on and that’s what the topic is, it probably wouldn’t hurt them. It’s all about building networks that help you achieve those business goals. So in supporting your team members and your sales team, anyone that’s customer facing to understand how to listen effectively and how to communicate effectively with those generations. It’s absolutely going to aid your client retention. So having a good brand reputation personal brand is equally important, and this is why we’re building the skills that we’re building this season.
Chris Irving 41:52
Thank you for listening to the confident networker. You can find more episodes and information at Bnian.com.au/podcast
Transcribed by https://otter.ai