Networking for Business – The Container Theory
Social networking is all the rage but at some point we have to take this offline. We have to make contact to do business.
So why are you networking?
Some of the things I network for are:
- Opportunities to connect to like minded people
- Opportunities to create more business
- Opportunities to speak and advertise my brand
I try to enhance my network constantly and therefore wherever I go so does my network.
Every person has a network, some of that is not active and some of it is. Many of us have about 300 connections that are active. By active I mean we make some form of regular contact with them every year. Many of us can maintain a really active network (more than 3 contacts a year) of about 100.
Now imagine you are standing at a networking function, filled with 20 like minded people, who all have a really active network of 100. How many opportunities are there? 2020 – yes two thousand and twenty opportunities. If all of that meant business in some way you may never keep up. Imagine in turn if each of the new 2000 opportunities also had 100 opportunities each, that’s another two hundred thousand (200000) opportunities. You would NEVER run out of business to do.
We don’t physically see these contacts but each great connector (networker) carries them around like a virtual container of opportunities ready to be opened and offered to others.
Who is in your virtual container? Who do you need to add? Remember when you open your connections to others to add value, they do likewise and you start t create opportunities and more good contacts in your containers.
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