About a month ago I finally tore myself away from my wife and kids for a night and went to a sales training event when Tom ‘Big Al’ Schreiter was in town.
It was a good event, but I was there for the networking.
Unfortunately everyone seemed to have come for the training only. In fact it seemed like they had all been brainwashed with the idea that they were in competition with everyone else in the room. The first question people would ask was “Which company are you with?”
Yuck!
Anyway at the end as I was chatting with the organizers to at least get some networking done with the top people there on the night, and I mentioned (in a loud voice) that I was there to network. Only one guy in the room took the hint and handed me his business card as he went past and said, “Contact me.”
So I did.
I tried calling, leaving a message, and a couple of polite emails. Then finally I left a phone message and sent an email saying, “Hope you are well. As I mentioned in my phone message if you want to network with me it’s now up to you.”
That got a reply…
“Sorry. I’m keen. Lets talk.”
So we set up a meeting.
Turns out that this guy is the most successful local MLMer I’ve come across so far. He’d been in quite a few different companies over a couple of decades, had a couple of belly flops, but also a string of successes as well. It really was no surprise that he was the one person in the room who was interested to network.
A few days later he emailed me about an new company that had just started that addressed one of the biggest marketing issues I had mentioned to him when we spoke. Moreover it’s a company he didn’t even know about when he first handed me his card.
That’s the key.
Just like word of mouth, networking often gets done before you ever realize you need it, and you need to go in with no preconceived idea what might come of it.
When this guy handed me his card he didn’t think he’d meet a medical doctor with an online marketing blog, and I didn’t think I’d join a new company. But we both knew that if we built networks these opportunities would come.
Are you thinking everyone is your competition?
Are you only networking within a known circle?
If so, then take a punt some times and become the networker who takes the opportunity to go that little bit further.
-Martin Russell
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