One of the results from the Australian Businesswomen’s Network 2010 survey was a need for more networking opportunities. Opportunities to network are everywhere, the biggest issue is that we don’t do it properly. I wanted to share here, a post that I wrote on my personal blog. It is a way to live, not an event, and it will create a tribe around you of clients, customers, staff, supporters, fans, advisors, and friends. My grandpa was a great connector and mentor to me, so I thought I’d share a conversation I had with him about networking.
I believe we’ve made it too complicated. So did he. Generate good-will because you want to help Grandpa almost always greeted me by saying: Have you generated any good-will recently? He asked it so often that it became ingrained in my thinking. It also meant I always needed to have a response of: Yes, I’ve… His response would be: Well if you’ve generated some good-will then it will come together for you. Understand what you’re passionate about and how you can assist Grandpa was a lawyer by trade. He was passionate about it. He was even more passionate about the arts and knew he could use his skills as a lawyer and passion for the arts to help. In turn his experience with arts organisations helped his business as a lawyer. Know what is work to you and know when to offer it for free When grandpa did property law, it was work (that doesn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it). When it was using his skills in the arts it wasn’t. I’m not saying that all property work was charged, he had pro-bono clients. However, when it came to the arts he didn’t charge, he received rewards in other ways, which were sometimes just pleasure. Communicate As Kim Williams said at a celebration of grandpa’s life:
I’ve been a periodic recipient of thoughtful letters from him. Some of them unusually long in that beautiful copper plate hand writing of his… At times they were welcome; and others caused me to pause and reflect with considerable care in response to their striking observations which I can assure you were rendered with disarming candor. I am sure that many others have received similar precious communications with the sort of direct observations which we all too rarely experience in the course of life.
The key aspects to what Kim said about letters from grandpa (he was pre-internet in terms of communication) was that we ‘all too rarely experience’ it and that they had ‘striking observations’. More importantly, they were received by enough people that when Kim told the story there was fond laughter from the audience. Grandpa, sat down to write letters to people on a regular basis. To touch base or share his views… he communicated and that created a great connection to a broad range of people. He didn’t see it as networking. It was just the right way to live. He didn’t understand the term networking because it was just good practice.
