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Book and blog reviews for savvy entrepreneurs

In 1999, Havey Mackay wrote the networking classic Dig Your Well before You’re Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You’ll Ever Need. As the author of two books on networking, clearly I don’t agree with his subtitle, yet I’ve always recommended the book because his basic advice stood the test of time . . . until now.

The internet and even our current economic crises have changed the way we network. This is why I chose to review the book Smart Networking: Attract a Following in Person and Online by Liz Lynch. If you’re still networking 1999 style, it’s time for an upgrade, and I liked Lynch’s approach.

The beginning of the book focuses on convincing people that they have to network. Even if you don’t need convincing, there are a few good gems in there, such as:

“Your plan may be to stay right where you are, but that might not be your employer’s plan. Job security is a thing of the past. The only security we can count on now is our own ability to adapt quickly, and those who can’t will struggle.”

“More ways to communicate means that it’s easier to be left out of the conversation.”

Here are just a few of the tips that stood out to me. I just reviewed a book about online networking, and there are excellent sections on that in this book, but I’m going to focus on the in-person tips.

You don’t need a huge network if you have a responsive one. I wholly agree with this. Thanks to technology, we’re able to connect with thousands of people. But truthfully, we can only manage real relationships with a fraction of that number. (For more on this topic, see the discussion in the comments after my last book review where we discuss “super connectors” on LinkedIn).

Just about everything you need to be successful with networking boils down to one question: What kind of person would you need to be for someone to be willing to help you more than once? When you think about only your immediate need, then you end up thinking only about yourself. By thinking down the road a bit, you are forced to consider how you would have to treat that person in order to be able to make another “ask.”

Think about giving and receiving (help); not person by person, but within a whole system. This is basically a “pay it forward” philosophy, but it’s helpful to remember so you don’t become a “networking scorekeeper.”

It used to be: It’s not what you know but whom you know.
Then it became: It’s not whom you know, but who knows you.
Now it’s: It’s not who knows you, but who’s willing to help you.

Lynch uses this to lead into a section where she quotes Tim Sanders of Yahoo! in The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life’s Dreams, “The more likable you are, the more likely you are to be on the receiving end of a positive choice from which you can profit.”

Get a strong sense of people’s personality and potential likeability through what you can find out about them online. While this is a small point that she makes, for me it marks a difference in how people view online networking. In our 2006 and 2008 online networking surveys, when we asked women who didn’t network online why they didn’t, the top answer after “I don’t know how” was that it’s “too impersonal.” If anything, online networking has put the “personal” back into networking.

If you want to pitch your business, the best way to do it is one-on-one during a conversation. She gives a great example of how engage the other person by envisioning the conversation as a ball that you toss back and forth, learning something new about the other person as well as revealing something more about what you do.

If you want to build a networking relationship with someone, don’t respond to “what’s new?” with a “nothing much” answer. Pick one project you’re currently working on that could be relevant to that person and work it into a short response.

Avoid networking burnout (revisiting the same people over and over again) by constantly expanding your network. She gives some good examples of how to do this both in person and online.

I liked the section on Leading with Value in All your Interactions. “Think of how you can add value to people’s lives when you plan to interact with them, and you’ll always be welcome.” She then goes on to describe different ways you can do this:

Use Value for First Time Follow-up

Uncover value through conversation.
Set the mechanics in motion.
Make sure you’re remembered.
Ask for the meeting.
Orchestrate a successful meeting.

Offer Value in Ongoing Outreach

Forward helpful information.
Make a date for coffee.
Refer someone to them.
Launch a “help offered” campaign.
Invite them to an event.

Add Value by Making Connections.

Connect someone to a friend.
Connect someone to a vendor.
Connect someone to a customer.
Connect someone to a resource.
Connect someone to an organization.

Another section I really appreciated was her chapter on “Raising your profile to stand out from the crowd.” In this section her two top tips were:

Take on leadership roles in a networking group.
Start your own networking group.

I can clearly attest that every one of my best and favorite contacts can be related back to work I did on a committee and/or founding the Downtown Women’s Club. In addition to the DWC, the other most useful committee work for me has been the program committee for the local chamber of commerce, the marketing committee of a real estate industry association and an event committee at a local art museum. I can trace almost every good networking result back to those groups in some manner.

The rest of the book includes helpful tips on how to build an online profile and leverage online communities.

Top Shelf Bottom Line. This was a comprehensive networking book that has the right attitude (help first, ask later) and includes both online and in-person tips. If you haven’t read a networking book lately, this is the one to pick up. In the final chapter Lynch even includes a networking plan, which helps you break down networking to make it more manageable on a daily basis.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Nonfiction. 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.