Written by: Heather Hunter, Director of Marketing, Synergize
Here’s one key truth about business: Every relationship is an opportunity.
That’s what makes networking so important. At any given event, you could meet someone who will become your next client, partner, mentor, or coworker. Better yet, if you make a good enough impression, they might introduce you to more people who can help you and your business in even bigger ways than you’d imagined.
It sounds like sunshine and butterflies, but have you ever left a networking event with a bad taste in your mouth? Even though it’s a great way to meet new people, networking can feel pretty fake sometimes. It’s exhausting to try to correctly determine how to pitch yourself to 15 different people in two hours, then adjust to their judgment of you to try and create a good connection. Constantly making these little edits to our authentic selves is draining.
Why does this happen in a setting intended to foster real connection?
Controversial opinion alert… Networking events put way too much emphasis on the outcome of the relationships you build, and not enough on the relationships themselves. It’s hard to prioritize building the relationship when you’re expecting instant gratification and a solution to your problems.
This leads to people joining networking groups under the impression that everyone there, including themselves, is the means to an end for someone else. They’re walking around either trying to find the person whose needs they’re supposed to be meeting, or trying to find the person who can meet their own. It’s like an Easter egg hunt where only five eggs hold candy and the rest of them hold little pieces of raw broccoli.
So how do you open amazing opportunities for you and your business while creating better, deeper connections in your personal network? There IS a way… and it starts with believing every Easter egg has candy in it.
Find the Opportunity
The most important thing you can do while networking isn’t grabbing the right amount of business cards. It’s redefining the way you think about “opportunity”.
Right now, envision a big field with a billion different paths that your relationship with someone can take. That’s opportunity, and it’s beautiful! But the second you add a defining characteristic onto a relationship – a “sales” opportunity, a “partnership” opportunity, or something like that – your options start to disappear. You have now boxed that opportunity into only a handful of paths your relationship with someone can travel as it grows.
This works if the person is a good fit for any one of those paths you’ve identified. But what if that person isn’t a “sales opportunity”? What if they’re someone who would be an amazing new Operations Director for your company in eight months when they get fed up with their crappy boss and leave their job? What if they’re the person who can save you the cost of a tow truck in two months when your car breaks down on the interstate in the middle of the night? What if they’re the person who walks with you through a divorce you never saw coming?
If your only view of someone is a new email address in your sales funnel, you will miss every single one of these opportunities.
To keep all these opportunities open, you need to let the relationship define itself. Resist the urge to skip straight to what you want. Become comfortable with building relationships that aren’t meant to immediately help your business. Better yet, start a relationship with the intent to help someone else, even if it doesn’t help you. Things like that can tell you a lot about the character of your new connections. They also have a way of cycling back to lift you up when you need it most.
Our favorite networking approach (especially in Synergize) is to label every connection as a “friendship opportunity”.
And if you’re of the minority saying “I already do that” – ask yourself two things: Are you still more likely to pour into the friends that can help you most, even if you don’t connect with them as well as the friends that don’t? And have you ever considered it a waste of your time to connect with someone if you don’t have a commonality that directly relates to your goals?
If the answer to either is yes, you’re not alone. Professional relationships aren’t a black-and-white situation. You can truly care about your relationship with someone, even if you’re gently guiding them towards whatever result you want from them. But here’s the hard truth: any time you have a predetermined goal in a relationship with someone before they’ve had a chance to weigh in on it, you’ve already failed at being their friend.
Odds are, your friends will look to you when they need what your business provides. But to become the person who meets that need, you have to build that friendship first. It takes time and effort. But it’s almost always worth it.
If I were Aesop, I would say that today’s moral is not to judge the Easter egg by the sound it makes when you shake it. If you like the egg, open it and find out what’s inside. And if it’s not the answer to your immediate needs, foster that relationship regardless. Appreciating good people for who they truly are will always pay off in the end – usually in ways you never knew you needed.
P.S.: If you’re in the northern Indianapolis area and looking for a big group of awesome people who all think this way, you’d probably be a great addition to the Synergize fam!!
