The Cost & Mindsets of Networking

John Quayle
Aug 28, 2017 · 6 min read

Over the course of growing up, there were countless subjects and lessons to learn. When we were small, schools started us off with the basics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. As we became older, the lessons became more complex and other subjects were added such as science, philosophy, and history. When we finally reached young adulthood, we were able to choose our own specialization — learning a vast amount of information and acquiring skill sets around particular subjects. Upon graduation, we ventured off into the world in hopes of creating value all the while
having fun.

If you can remember back to your education days (or perhaps you’re still in it), do you remember one of the few things they didn’t teach you?

I would imagine that most of you never properly learned how to network with others.

You’d think that after all those years of education, someone or some system would be able to show you the ropes on how to quickly establish rapport and have a pleasant, yet productive conversation with anyone — especially when you consider that one of the longest standing idioms of society is “its not what you know, its who you know”.

However, when you ask people about the art of networking, they perceive
it as…

…one-sided…
…filled with asks…
…a complete time sink…
…expensive…
…ROI hell…

Having the ability to connect with anyone is one of the most important skills that we can have and yet our national opinion on it is extremely negative. How did we get to this point?

No matter where you go, whom you talk to, or what their backgrounds are, the majority of people have firmly established a dark negative energy cloud around the word itself. One quick mention of the phrase is almost a guaranteed way to quickly kill any conversation.

When you think about it, it isn’t hard to understand why individuals feel the way they do.

At some point in time, we’ve all been there…in a room of complete strangers, being abnormally quiet, with our nerves going haywire after the first minute. We have no idea what to say, what to do with our hands, or even how to introduce ourselves.

And the funny thing is, we see this same pattern over and over again — endless chances are reappearing to lump random people together with various backgrounds and skills. When you consider that these occurrences don’t have a particular objective and that people were never really taught how to make sense of the chaos, it makes sense as to why hatred was an immediate byproduct.

But before we continue to carry this mob mentality in developing an absolute hostility on the art, let’s pause to think about this one for a moment.

Society ultimately forgets that networking of any kind is an incredibly messy process. Along the way you’re going to meet all walks of life, people with different social skill levels, individuals with unique talents, and more than your fair share of crowds that you won’t get along with or can’t help.

Even in outside chance you have top-notch social skills and the intelligence to match it to survive waves of strangers, it is likely that you still haven’t thought about the total costs and mindsets around the art. And in order to improve our skills, we need to fully grasp what we leverage every time we go to network.

The COSTS

Beyond the obvious answer of money, there are at least five areas of costs that you’ll be asked to pay during the moments you decide to navigate waves of people. What are they?

  • Your Time — The amount of hours and minutes you’ll spend going to your destination, staying there, and then leaving towards your next spot. If you’re not willing to spend this resource, none of the other resources matter.
  • Your Energy — the strength or vitality you’ll spend traveling to an event and interacting with the other attendees. Talking with someone can be an absolute breeze or a nightmare. Regardless, you’re going to need a bit of energy to go beyond the motions.
  • Your Sanity — the level of mental health you’re at and how it’ll affect your time networking. Whether or not you realize it, you’ll always mentally wear your good days, bad days, and the experiences that drastically affect your mood. Those mental pieces of clothing will immediately appear in the way to speak to someone.
  • Your Financial Capital — the cost in terms of actual currency: parking, food/drinks, event entry fee, etc. Depending on your goals and experience, this could be as little as $20 or a whole lot more.
  • Your Social Capital — the openness to continue existing relationships or help new ones with your willingness to engage your network on behalf of the new acquaintance (ie. investing time towards a particular individual, your eagerness to help out a new acquaintance, promising personal introductions to people who are looking for a specific item or skill set). This may not be an immediate spend, but if you continue to carry on a conversation beyond the initial meeting, you’ll likely try to see if you can assist connecting the dots with your new acquaintance.

By combining these five areas, you’ll easily get an accurate cost of what it takes to network. Obviously, there aren’t key metrics or scales to compare a lot of these categories to any sort of a normal standard, but rather a simple check on what is available. In any case, you have to go into the art of networking knowing that you’re going to consistently waste resources.

Keep in mind that wasting those resources in pursuit of becoming a better networker is perfectly ok.

And while you’re calculating the cost of your next event, do you know what mindset you’ll take with you while attending?

The MINDSETS

Having a tailored mindset going into the art of networking will significantly help you squash any negativity that you may have built up. From the beginning, it is crucial to understand that any networking initiative will cost something. However, there is also another element (mindsets) that you should figure out before venturing out into the wild.

Overall, it seems as if we’re emotionally set up to believe that only a small effort in networking will change everything — which isn’t the case. In fact, if you want to develop life changing networking habits, you’re going to have to understand that the art will take you years to develop.

Let’s throw around some light numbers. Consider this…

Learning and perfecting the art of networking, if done effectively, will at least take you 2–3 years at minimum. When you compare this to the average human lifespan (in the USA, ~ 78 years), it’ll only take around 4% of your life to perfect something that will stretch across every single facet of your life.

Why wouldn’t you agree to it?

When you finally do, here are a few mindsets that might be worthwhile to adopt to keep negativity at bay:

  • Keep your expectations low. When you go to an event or a small gathering, all you can expect is that you’ll have a conversation with a few individuals. Any result above that will be a nice surprise.
  • Always be direct & upfront with anyone you meet. If you’re looking for something specific (a new job, client, friend, etc) be open to discussing it in a polite, nonabrasive way.
  • Keep an open mind for having additional conversations & meetings beyond the event. As the requests for additional meetings come in, evaluate every opportunity on its own to see if it makes sense for you.
  • Never hard sell anyone, ever. You might desperately need to hit your sales quota, but hard selling is an immediate way to develop a bad reputation.
  • Plan as if every person you meet won’t be able to help you for at least 1 year. Once you mentally eliminate any short term gain for you, you’ll be able to develop relationships naturally — getting to know others first instead of trying to force any agenda you have on someone else.

Understanding the costs and adopting these mindsets will make the art of networking much easier for you in the future. No matter how you go about it, having patience is the key to developing any skill. You’ll likely make a few mistakes along the way and put yourself in awkward conversations. But don’t worry, you’ll eventually understand how to network, how to develop pattern recognition, and navigate through waves of people.

Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to change your life. Networking can be one of the single best ways to transform your professional and personal life. The least we could do is remove the negativity around it.

)

John Quayle

Written by

Entrepreneur, Advisor, & Business Operations Professional. Bringing Visions to Life. Founded StartNow Pittsburgh.

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