Remember the old days (in the last century) when your parents told you to go to school, stay out of trouble, keep your nose clean, study hard, get good grades, get a good job, work there for 40 or 50 years, retire, move to Florida and enjoy the good life?  Were you told this like I was?  How’s that working out?  That may have worked at some point way back in the past, but even ten year olds know that it doesn’t work this way today. Networking has always been a smart thing to do and never more so than today.  Especially today.  Networking is the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give-and-take, win-win relationships.  In a more and more interconnected world it is very smart to build strong networks.  The days of working in a silo and not connecting with folks outside of your silo are over.  Just look at Social …

When you're networking remember that everyone has WIIFM written on their forehead in invisible ink.  "What's In It For Me?"  This is true regardless of the person's age, gender, occupation or anything else.  There are some things that we all share in common and this is one of them.  There is no subject that is more interesting to each of us than ourselves.  So the best networkers remember this and use it to create win-win relationships.  Now, let's clarify upfront that we're not talking about manipulation or slickness.  Although, if you look up manipulation in the dictionary it means "to handle skillfully".  Most of us could use a little more skillful handling although the word "manipulation" is usually used in a negative connotation.   So, knowing that people like to talk about themselves, it's not a stretch to realize that the other person is looking for a way for this …

Because people can't read minds, we make decisions about the folks that we meet and network based on things like clothes, body language, eye contact and other factors.  Of course, we also make decisions based on the other person's credibility as it relates to what kind of work they do.  But there is something that a lot of people don't think about when they're networking that they should notice about themselves and others.  Enthusiasm.  Are we giving the impression that we enjoy the kind of work that we do?  Are we giving the impression that we're interested in the other person?  Quite often, people don't realize that they are sending mixed signals. Have you ever met the person who says they're excited and you're thinking "Why don't you notify your face?"  I meet them from time to time.  People are picking up subtle clues all the time as to the …

We never outgrow the need to have our feelings known and much of the conflict in our lives can be explained by one simple fact: people don’t really listen to each other.  In a more and more hyper-paced world we sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that we can do more than one thing at a time.  The truth is that we just end up doing one thing poorly after another.  We’ve gained unparalleled access to information and lost something very important.  We’ve lost the habit of concentrating our attention.  The simple art of listening isn’t so simple.  Take the time to focus and listen to people.  Regardless of how much we take it for granted, the importance of listening cannot be overestimated.  The gift of our attention and understanding makes other people feel validated and valued.  Our ability to listen, and listen well, creates goodwill that comes back to us.  …

Effective networking is a lot like matchmaking.  As you are out and about meeting people, always be thinking about who they should know.  By taking a sincere interest in people and learning what kind of work they do, you will be able to refer people and resources to them.  You can always tell when you’re dealing with a good networker when they say, “You know, I need to introduce you to so and so.”  That differentiates them from a lot of people right there but the great networkers take it one more step.  They actually facilitate the introduction. Anyone can say that I need to introduce you to so and so, but the pros actually do it.  This may sound shocking, but so does the fact that people do things that they know are bad for them.  We all do this in different areas of our lives.  We’re all hypocrites …

We never outgrow the need to have our feelings known.  When we meet people we need to remember that everyone likes to feel appreciated.  Whether the person is a white collar, blue collar or no collar worker, we are all so much more similar than we are different.  DNA has proven this.  I’ve heard that all humans are genetically 99% the same.  It’s the 1% difference that we tend to see and focus on.  Skin color, height, gender, hair or lack thereof…you know the drill.  I also recently heard that all life on earth is at least genetically 90% the same, whether you’re talking about a banana or a whale.  Well, I know some people that have much more in common with bananas than humans, but I digress. Much of the conflict in our lives can be explained by one simple fact: people don’t really listen to each other.  We …

There was a time in business when there was your personal life and there was your business life.  I think that most people would agree that those lives started to blur together a long time ago.  With the advent of Social Networking, the dividing line has completely evaporated for a lot of us.  Personally, I think this is a great thing.  We’re not talking about stalking here, we’re talking about transparency.  This is our opportunity to let people know that we’re not corporate drones and that we have souls and are compassionate.  Being a great businessperson, networker, or whatever and caring about people are not mutually exclusive. We need to remember that we’re not dealing with companies, corporations, institutions and son on – we’re dealing with people.  It’s easy to forget that sometimes, especially when you’re in line at the DMV and places like that.  We feel like we’ve become …

We become like the people we associate with.  This is true whether we’re five or fifty-five.  There are certain kids that we don’t want our kids to hang around with.  The reason for this is because we intuitively know that we become like the people we associate with and we don’t want our kids becoming like “those kids”.  So, at what age does that change?  It doesn’t.  Adults are just kids with long, hairy legs.  Just like little kids, we become like the people we associate with.  Knowing this, it may serve us well to choose to associate with positive, uplifting people.  I’m not talking about hanging around with people that are in denial that there is crap in the world; just people who choose to focus on the positive.  Everyone has crap in their life and anyone who tells you that they don’t needs a checkup from the neck …

There are a lot of strategies and techniques that are proposed to break people’s attention and get them to focus on us and our message.  I find that most of these maneuvers are very self-serving and pretty simple to see through.  I also believe that only every waking moment of our lives we are sending messages that I call “tells”.  In Vegas, a “tell” is a sign that you give off unintentionally regarding what you’re holding in your hand.  Actually, we give off “tells” all the time.  The question is whether we are aware we are doing this or not. Not to be sexist, women tend to pick up on tells more frequently than men.  Maybe it’s their intuition, or their experience in reading through a lot of b.s. from guys.  Who knows?  As guys, we often don’t realize that our body language, eye contact, intonation, listening, or lack of …

You would have to be Tom Hanks living on an island with a volleyball named Wilson not to know that Social Media is hotter than a blowtorch right now.  And while that’s all well and good, there are many, many people who seem to have forgotten that traditional networking still exists.  Actually, it’s stronger than ever for real networkers because the effective use of Social Media opens up tons of doors for traditional networking. Up until a few years ago, you never had to differentiate between “offline” and “online” networking.  Social Media/Networking has changed all that.  And while they may seem separate, in fact, they are far more alike than different.  The irony is that we are not networking “with” computers, but “through” computers.  And the best networkers move it offline as quickly as they can in order to develop true relationships with their networking partners. Organizations like BNI and …