Networking Matters, Even if You’re Not in Sales

If you want to learn how to network more effectively, talk to my friend Michael Hughes (http://networkingforresults.com/) , quite correctly called North America’s Networking Guru. Here we aren’t looking at the how, but simply the why everyone needs to network.
What we know is this: you will be at your happiest, most productive, and most profitable when you are in the zone where your unique giftings are being used to serve exactly those people who deeply need what you offer. This is at the heart of the Alignment Principle.
The obvious problem is that all those people who need you may never have heard of you. It may also mean that there is no mechanism or conduit for them to access your offering. And this is where networking comes in.
Fame or notoriety may come to you by chance, but for most of us, people get to know us, or our work, by reference. That is, they come to us for help because they have heard we have the solution. That might be because a slick advertising campaign, but not likely. Far more probably they know of our work, or even more likely, they know somebody who knows us or our work.
Networking doesn’t typically produce immediate sales or work. What it actually gives you is opportunity. It may put the dinner on the table in front of you, but you actually have to pick up your fork and knife and do something about it.
Even (or perhaps especially) in large organizations where you are pretty well assured a job for life, you need to network, both within and outside the organization. Why is this?

Actually, there are two reasons. First, although your work may speak for itself, it is rare that anyone outside your group knows much about you or your work, even though you and your work might be exactly what some other department needs.
Second, until you get near the end of your career, you probably are not getting to apply all of your giftings. It is through progressive complexity and responsibility that you will bloom into all you were meant to be. And that doesn’t always fall in your lap.
What you need are champions and ambassadors. This is equally true whether you are in a large entity or practicing on your own above the Burger King. Champions and ambassadors will speak up in department meetings and say, “I know just the person we need!”
Anyone who has been in business or a profession for more than a couple of years will know that the richest stream of business comes by word of mouth. And clearly, the more mouths, the more words, and the more business.
So while half of the equation is that you focus on your best giftings, the other half is that there also has to be those clients who really need your giftings. Without those ideal clients, you will never be professionally fulfilled, or satisfied.
And that is why you need a network of champions and ambassadors– people who will make the connection between your giftings and the needs of potential clients. While it is true the quality of your network is more important than its size, it’s also true that the more ambassadors you have, the better. Serious, purposeful networking is essential if you really want the alignment principle to work for you.
Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?