Effective Networking Techniques

You can see light bulbs going off all across the country. People are waking up to the fact that they need to have an effective network to prosper in these tough times.

Unfortunately, so many people are clueless as to effective networking. It is one of those important life skills that, regretfully, are not taught in school or college.

Fortunately,

effective networking is a skill and, as such, can be taught.

(I have been teaching this skill to high-end professionals for some time).

Rather than pontificate about my own beliefs about effective networking let me recommend three of the best books I have ever read on the subject. All three are first rate. Before you invest another hour on networking, I strongly recommend that you read one of these three books. The two hour investment in reading through any one of the books will pay huge dividends.

My very favorite book on networking is Click, Ten Truths for Building Extraordinary Relationships by George Fraser. George does a great job of explaining the philosophy of "giving" that is the foundation for success in networking.

A close second is The 29% Solution, 52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies by Ivan Misner. This book is solid on the philosophy and very strong on the action steps needed to build a powerful network.

I hate to rank one of the three as "only" my third favorite as Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Black Book of Connections is well done, as are all of Jeff's books. (I think his best ever is his latest, Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Teal Book of Trust.)

No matter how badly you believe that you need to get networking immediately, please take the time to read one of these three books before you go off building a network like an amateur. Better yet, don't just read one of the books, implement the strategies! Become a master networker!! And, not just until you get a job. Power networking is all about being a giver, and that is something you can be with or without a job.

Many, many years ago, one of my mentors, Zig Ziglar, drilled into my mind

"you can get whatever you want in life if you will help enough others get what they want."

Commit, today, to live this philosophy for the rest of your life and you will prosper, no matter how difficult the times.

Coming Next: Building a Network Before You Need One, the third in this three part series on networking.

Networking for Jobs

I expect that everyone reading this blog has noticed an increase in the networking efforts of current friends. This most often manifests through requests for connecting on Facebook or LinkedIn. And, it is not just current friends requesting to link; I am hearing from friends that I have been out-of-touch with for more than twenty five years (that is nice benefit of this malaise).

The reason for the sudden interest in networking is obvious. Networking has long been championed as one of the best ways, if not the best way, to find a new job.

The question is whether traditional networking will work equally effectively in this downturn.

I think not. But, what do I know in a world where so many of the traditional rules are changing so quickly.

Networking made lots of sense to me when there are jobs available and the person looking for a job networked to find the proverbial "needle in the haystack." But, today, jobs are so scarce that networking to find a job is not likely to be as effective as in other times.

If I was without a job, I would network effectively, but I would couple that with an aggressive effort to convince an owner or manager that I could do a given job better than the incumbent. Ouch. Not the nicest of thoughts, in some ways. But, hasn't almost every job most of ever gotten been a matter of convincing someone we would to do a better job than the incumbent.

It is in targeting taking a job away that networking can be very powerful method of succeeding with this approach. Friends are generally willing to help when we ask them for something very specific. Merely asking friends to let you know if they see anything for you underutilizes your network.

Ultimately, the willingness of your network to help you...whether to find a job or to help you in some way to unseat an incumbent...is a function of the quality of your network.

I see so many people thinking that the name of the game is to build the biggest Rolodex, or the greatest number of contacts on LinkedIn. The secret of the best networkers has long been quality over quantity.

Coming Next: Building an Effective Network, the second in this three part series on networking.

Blame for the Recesssion

We live in a society that loves to blame others for our own ills. Can you believe that one of the most popular searches on Google is "blame for the recession."

Given the magnitude of the economic meltdown, there is plenty of blame to go around.

It is fashionable to blame "greedy wall streeters." But, greedy wall streeters could not have pulled this off were the rest of society not acting equally greedy.

Much of society was looking to be quick millionaires by leveraging up and hoping that asset values would rise quicker than debt costs. As a result, many were susceptible to all manner of scams, from outright frauds like Madoff to less benign investment schemes.

And, Washington politicians and bureaucrats did little if anything to stop us from our excesses. On either side of the aisle!

The better Google search might be "who doesn't share some of the blame for this economic meltdown."

But, what I can't figure out is why assigning blame is really important.

If you are fortunate enough to have a job, seems to make more sense to focus on saving your job.

If you have lost your job, seems to make the most sense to focus on finding a job.

How we got here is somewhat important so as to learn from the past. But, more important is for each person to quickly get on with self-rescue. Quickly!

Regular readers of this blog know that I believe that the sooner one embraces the recession, the sooner one will be on the road to prosperity.

Recession vs Depression

With the announcement each day of the latest bad news about the economy, it is only natural that many are beginning to wonder whether we are entering a depression.

I am not sure it makes a big difference what the economists want to call it. I get absolutely no comfort that some would emphatically suggest that we are not in a depression and that it is "only" a recession.

I am reminded of that very old sick "joke" about the difference between a recession and a depression. A recession is when your neighbor can't find a job. A depression is when you can't find a job.

As I travel the country serving my consulting clients, I am seeing a level of pain that I have not seen in my lifetime. And, my analysis of market factors for my clients has me convinced that this downturn will be long and deep, a belief I have stated here often since the inception of this blog last year.

Even the Fed, which is cautious about exacerbating the problem through negative talk, is now publicly reporting they expect this downturn to be a multi-year event.

Call it what you want. My bottom line is that I believe strongly that the sooner one repositions oneself to prosper in the downturn, the sooner one will experience prosperity.

Let the pundits debate whether it is a recession or a depression. Put your energy into crafting and then executing a plan for prospering in tough times.

Heck, it will be easy enough to go back to your good times plan when the good times eventually come.