Every once and a while we find ourselves listing, to use a nautical term, to one side or the other of our networking life. We’ve taken a turn to another type of business, we spend the bulk of our time with one group or our business has just flat fallen off.
So, what do we need to do to “right the ship?”
First, examine just what it is you are doing.
- What groups are you spending time with? Where do you spend your days?
- What percentage of your workday is spent networking and how much actually working for fees?
- Has your network grown or reduced in number?
- Is your network the same few people? Or do you include new people on a regular basis?
- If you had to start over, would you know where to go and who to talk with?
After you’ve done this self examination, then you need to formulate a plan:
- Is there a time limit on changing your habits? Set a schedule of when you will begin your changes and when they should see some results.
- Is there a cost to the changes you are making? Will it cost you a membership or registration fee? Will the cost of meetings (breakfast, lunch, happy hour) increase? Make a budget based on what you know and forecast when you will incur the costs.
- Can you measure the impact (positive or negative) of dropping or adding a new group or organization? What’s your “exit” plan for leaving an organization? Do you have (or need to be) invited to the group or groups you are targeting? In other words, is the change a good thing?
Next you need to take action. You have a rationale, schedule and cost, now go do it. As they say in investing, the best time to start saving was years ago–the second best time in today.
Always assess and look at how you are networking. Hopefully, you won’t have to resort to righting a ship because it won’t list in the first place as you will have a dynamic approach to networking.
Relentless
