The Foundation of Networking
What’s the first thing pop into your mind when learning a new skill or further developing a skill? The most common answer is probably looking into others for inspiration and techniques.
In the 21st century, as the technology gets more advanced. People often searching on the internet for help. However, it is not the best way to look into the enormous internet and gather all types of overwhelming information, that will only make you feel like the earth is spinning 20 times then its normal speed. Filter down the big goal that you want to accomplish, break it into small segments, and starts with the most fundamental. No matter what you want to do, there is always the most basic materials you need to understand first, then you be able to find the overall picture of the path you are going towards.
Same in business networking, first you need to understand some of the fundamental truth about networking. From David Fastuca’s blog 8 Truth About Developing a Business Network, the author states a few points that will help you improve on networking skills:
1. Creating a network need a massive amount of efforts, it’s a cumulative process to make the network stable. It require a lot of time and work.
2. “without effective communication, the network is dead.” In another word, is able to keep the network relations active, you must maintain standard interactions within the network. Otherwise, there might result in miscommunication, lead to misunderstanding, and the network could be shut down.
3. Don’t ever strictly think network as a strategy of a business. Everyone has a different perspective and unique experiences that can be beneficial for you to learn. Sometimes the monetary compensation is not as values as the knowledge you learn.
4. Know your own limits. Don’t ever be the one that’s asking for things, but think about what can you give for others. If your network is only involving asking for stuff but not given back, the network will surely fail.
5. Understand what you want and finding yourself a set to start with. Unless you understand who you are, otherwise how could be possible for you to express your true impression to others.
6. “Always deal honestly. Maintain your integrity.” In another word, Trust is a critical part of building up a network, how can you keep a network stable and strong if the person you working with never trust you. Your integrity is the value of why people want to collaborate with you.
7. “Be happy for their success, and stay focused on your actions.” Once you fall into the trap of jealous of what others have, you are losing your time and focus on something that’s useless and ugly. Be proud of other’s accomplishment and maybe you can learn something from their approach.
8. In the 21st century, technology is a powerful weapon for you to expand your knowledge and even build your network. A website can spread your idea more efficient and quicker than you can imagine.(2016)
Here I want to emphasize on two points. Finding yourself and understand what you want is the priority. What are your initial points? who are you connecting with? What do you want to get out of by accomplishing such task (Fastuca, 2016)? Until you figure out what you want, you never know you wanted. And the second point is the most fundamental for any skills; communication. The way you maintaining a relationship with others by using effective communication is the same as developing a business network (Fastuca, 2016). Communication can be as simple as speaking but can be difficult as what’s the proper way of speaking. It can starts as simple as “hi, I am…” and further develop throughout the conversation. What you need to do is to get rid of the fear, and take one step at a time. We are all human and created equal, you don’t need to feel the stress and fear of approaching a person. How do you know he/she doesn’t want to talk to you? Maybe you two share the same interest. you don’t know anything until you start to talk to that person, and that’s where network begins.
References
Fastuca, D. (2016, March 02). 8 Truths About Developing a Business Network [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@davidfastuca/8-truths-about-developing-a-business-network-cf91677df5cf
