Your Network Is Your Net Worth

When somebody articulates into words a thought that you don’t even know you had… Man, that makes your day.

I want to give him the credit he deserves. A friend from Washington, Martin Freeman, who works as a senior consultant but is many other good things, dropped in a recent conversation the title of this article and ignited my curiosity. I have to admit I’d never heard the sentence (neither about the book), but I thought he put into words a thing I tried to explain a thousand times.

–Why are you meeting this person? Are they a client? A prospect? Do you want their advice about any project you’re running?

–No, I want to meet them; I want to know if everything’s going well; I like them, I’m investing in our relationship.

–And you spend working time just hanging out with people?

–Well, yes, sometimes. I like to “waste” my time with people as a sign of respect, showing them that they’re worth my time, without any business involved.

I’ve been doing that for more than twenty years, and I don’t know if it worked as a business relationship or not. But I don’t care. I’m just interested in them, in listening, in learning, in helping when possible.

Wouldn’t you call that friendship? Caring without a direct and immediate interest could mean that. Well, maybe. Again, I don’t care about this perspective; I believe that building any relationship, personal or business, a meaningful one, takes trust, and building trust takes time and intentional effort.

Linked to that, Martin told me, later on in the conversation, that he was impressed by Never Eat Alone, the bestselling business classic on the power of relationships.

It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

I was also thinking about another friend, Ajit Dodani, who’s turned this philosophy into a meaningful and thriving activity. Empathy lies on the principle of providing “honest coaching to make us better team players”. Ajit encourages us to use “empathy as a superpower.” And indeed, it works.

Ok, can you measure and make all this stuff concrete? Probably not, and measuring is perhaps not the most important thing. Still, we have many success stories showing that your network can be one of your most valuable assets (besides making you a bit happier).

Eloqua, a marketing automation and intelligence platform, was sold to Oracle in 2012 for almost $900 million, and Paul Teshima played a crucial role in the transaction because he had built strong, shared relationships with the people at Oracle.

In this sense, he said that to build successful relationships, you need to work on these aspects:

1. “Weak ties”. It’s not enough to simply network within the bubble of your industry or profession — you have to branch out. Meet with people outside of your immediate sphere of influence, and get comfortable forming those weak ties.
2. Networking isn’t about selling a specific product or service. You can’t just focus on selling. Instead, approach networking as a way to practice relationship-building.
3. Successful relationships are built on mutual trust. You have to work for trust, because they are under no obligation to trust you.
4. Personalize your approach for everyone. Saying nice things, especially general ones, is insufficient. You need to form a real connection.
5. Be open: The best relationships you have in business are probably not from your current job or any job at all.

Porter Gale, former Vice President of Marketing for Virgin America Airways and author of the book we mentioned, shared something that sounds very sensible and meaningful: “Approach networking as transformational, not transactional.” She says that “the old way to network involved climbing a ladder for individual benefit. The past was about competition, the pursuit of materialism. In today’s model, networking is transformational or an inside game first.”

Helping feels good. And as Ajit said, “find your superpower and exploit it in the service of others.” Well, yes, but I have to make a living, right?

Right. You can try for a while and check whether the money comes too. Let us know.

And besides, the alternative is so boring and meaningless. As Reed Hastings said, “Do not tolerate brilliant jerks; the cost to teamwork is too high.”

I loved the article Nicolas Cole wrote a few months ago, so I wanted to keep his sentence as the final one for this article: “Listen — because not many people do it.”