John Treadgold is the host of the Good Future podcast, and a communications consultant specialising in impact investing and sustainable economics.
As one of Hub’s 31 Flexi-Impact members for 2019, he’s shared some of his wisdom about networking and community in a special guest blog.
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The hard thing about networking is that you have to dive-in without expecting anything in return.
If you see every interaction as a transaction, you won’t last long.
Instead, you need to walk into a room or log onto LinkedIn with the goal of giving.
This hit me hard when I first started going to conferences and reaching out to influential folk. What value do I have to give? That’s why I’m networking!
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But the people you want to meet are busy, and the more influential they are, it’s likely the busier they are. I’m sure they’re eager to help people and to lift a colleague a rung or two up the ladder, but they can’t respond to everyone who wants to ‘meet-for-a-coffee’.
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Instead, they’ll reserve their valuable time for those that have made the most effort. They want to reward hard work, and I have a suspicion they’ll take a shining to people in which they see a little of themselves. They didn’t get to the top by taking short-cuts, so don’t expect them to help you dodge the hard work.
And here lies the key to networking – it only works when you both bring something to the table.
You want your approach to be additive, not extractive.
It’s all about the circular economy, the same as impact investing, which is my field of research. I may be stretching the analogy, but sustainability, recycling and renewable energy all depend on balancing-out the give-and-take. Like a negotiation, if the other party doesn’t win, you don’t win.
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Offer value
Value: it’s a deliciously ambiguous term and it doesn’t offer much direction, but it offers plenty of opportunities. Everybody has something they’re good at and everybody has something to offer, even if it’s just an opinion.
The trick is being open enough to those you’re meeting so that you can empathise with them, and adapt your skillset to offer value by becoming the solution to their problem.
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Now, that may sound like some sort of advanced Jedi-ninja-mind-trick, but really, it’s just a matter of listening. If you shift your networking from handing out business cards to listening in to what other people are saying, then your network is going to grow.
If you soak up people’s body language, if you read their blog posts, watch their videos, and then adapt your skills to become their solution—I have no doubt your network will grow.
But will you get more business? Will you land a job? Will you be inundated with offers?
Maybe. Eventually.
But that’s not the point.
You’re networking, you’re not a salesperson and you’re not a billboard.
You’re a problem solver, and one thing I know for sure is that the world has far more problems than solutions so if you’re good, someone will pay you, eventually.
You can listen to John Treadgold’s podcast, Good Future, here – and follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter!
