Effortless Networking

My sister-in-law in India is starting a business. Last week she asked me if I could help her find some books with some technical information.

I replied saying that I had a client (based in the US) who is an expert consultant on the topic. Would she be interested in talking with him instead?

Well, here’s the email reply I got:

“Thanks Didi….YOU ROCK!!

I’ve written to Tom, asking him how much he would charge for a consultation on this project. Am now waiting for him to get back to me.

Hopefully I can get this ball rolling soon. Am very excited. Hope he can help!”

And you know, this email made my day! (I know, simple things make me happy.)

So why am I sharing this story with YOU?

To make two points:

1. First, this is an example of business networking in real life — outside business mixers and networking groups.

   You have no control over when such opportunities will show you. But when they show up, and you can act on it, it really makes a difference to all the people involved.

   My sister-in-law is clearly excited, my client Tom will be happy to get new business I’m sure, and as I already mentioned, it made my day to connect these 2 people.

   Also, even though I didn’t gain anything tangible in this interaction, I gained something very important (besides personal satisfaction): goodwill — with 2 people.

2. Second, I was able to refer my sister-in-law to Tom because I have a good understanding of exactly what he does.

   I know it sounds obvious — but think of how many times someone has told you what they do, and you have no idea what it means.

   For instance, many years ago at a business mixer, a gentleman told me that he runs a “full service print shop”. When I heard this I wondered, what does “full” include, and does that mean there “partial” service places? And why would a business offer partial services?

   My impression is that most people in such situations don’t ask for clarification (although if you did, that would be an great way to start a worthwhile networking conversation).

   My point is, if you’re not clear about what a person really does, how can you recognize an opportunity to refer business to him or her?

So I’m curious to know: what has been your experience in this area?

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Networking Conversations, Success stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.