Networking for people who are not good at networking

If you want to be more successful, stop networking. by Daniel DiPiazza, Entrepreneur

Summary:
Ask yourself: What do I want?
Determine what would you need to get what you want?
Identify the people who are experts or can definitely facilitate what you want?
Identify what these people want and try to give/contribute to them what they want.
Receiving what you want from these people - could fall in realm of hopology or luck or respect for you or Luck.



When you make friends with successful people the sky's the limit. This is how partnerships are made, handshake deals are done, and new audiences found. And it's not as difficult as you might think.

The biggest reason why connecting with people benefits you is simple: It allows you to extend your reach further, which in turn allows your ideas to make a much bigger impact.

The result is that you achieve your goals a lot faster with a few key friends to help you out than if it is just you, banging your head against the wall.

Additionally, the more successful people you're connected to, the more likely you are to be successful yourself ("You're the average of your five closest friends").

It's just a good idea to get close to as many winners as possible. Duh. Connect with successful people. But how?

Today, I'm going to teach you how to connect with anybody in the world.

Networking? Yuck.
I think the term is "played out" at best. At worst, it's completely repulsive.

Nobody wants to think of themselves as a "networker," nobody likes to think of themselves as part of someone else's "network," and without question nobody enjoys "networking" mixers.

There's something predatory about the whole experience.

So from here on out, we'll frame our conversation in the context of meeting and connecting with interesting people for the simple joy of making new friends and living a better life. We're not collecting people or trading "contacts." We're not dealing with baseball cards.

These are real people (just as we are) and if you think of everyone as a human, not a potential step in your ego-driven ladder-climbing to success, I guarantee you that you will actually climb said ladder faster.

It's counter-intuitive, but it works. I promise.

1. The Internet cocktail party
How to find people with mutual interests and make them love you.
Do you ever suspect successful people all know each other? Like an elite secret society?

Well, you're partially right. But you can get an invite to the club (meetings are in a basement in Southeastern Utah BTW).

When I first started my blog Rich20Something, I didn't know anybody. It was like walking into a cocktail party by myself where everyone was already acquainted, and not knowing a single soul.

In that situation, the only logical thing you can do is start introducing yourself to people in a way that prompts them to respond to you.

You don't want to be the only one babysitting a drink in the corner, do you?

I didn't have much to give at the time, but I did have my little website. So I decided to conduct interviews. Why interviews? Well, let's face it: Everyone likes to talk about themselves — and anyone who's been around the Internet block a few times knows that having your name in as many places as possible is helpful. It all adds up.

So I just searched on Twitter, Facebook, etcetera to find people with sizable audiences who seemed like they had something interesting to say. I wrote literally DOZENS of emails to different bloggers and entrepreneurs asking the simple question, "Can I interview you?"

Looking back on it, my approach was juvenile and ugly. But it got the job done. I'll remind you over and over again, it's more important to just do it than to get it 100% perfect right.

I personalized each message, pressed send, and prayed. Soon I started getting actual responses — mind blown. Then I created a page of interviews — which ended up being the first page of this website. In one fell swoop I'd created some cool content for my readers (which at that point, was basically just my mom) and I'd made some connections.

People began to know who I am. I was no longer a complete stranger at the party.

If I were doing this entire exercise over again, I would keep it super short and distill the information into only the essential points. Most people aren't jerks — so they'd like to be able to read your stuff.

But EVERYONE is busy and overwhelmed. So make it easy on them. Use this template:

Hey NAME, My name is Daniel and I do ________ (insert job, blog, etc). I saw your work on _______ and really enjoyed it. I'm just reaching out because __________ (insert common interest, solution to their problem, etc). Do you have 5 minutes to chat any time in the next 2 weeks? I have some time on __________ (name a few specific days/times) Thanks! Daniel

If you do this 100 times and make 10 new friends, that alone is completely worth the effort. However, as you practice more and more, you'll start refining your process and most likely, your response rates will increase.

I got to a point where nine of 10 people were responding to me. That's when I knew I was onto something.

"What if I don't have a blog?"

Get one! Building an audience is one of the most powerful things you can do with your time.

But if you're not there yet, you need to find something that adds VALUE to the person's life.

Do some research to find out some of their passions, hobbies or pain points, then send them related content. Are they looking for the solution to a particular problem that you can help them with? (HINT: following them on Twitter often reveals those little annoyances that you can fix. Twitter is where people go to complain.)

Basically, be interesting and relevant. It's not as hard as it sounds to find common interests, connections or ways to help someone.

Something to remember: You have to choose the RIGHT time to reach out to someone. Just because you got your hands on the email address of a New York Times bestselling author doesn't mean it's the right time to connect with them.

Do your research. I'll frequently get the contact information of people I'd like to connect with but hold off on getting in touch. It's not the right time if I know when we talk, I won't have anything particularly interesting to say.

Again, we're not just collecting people here, we're making friends. Be a good friend.

Related: 5 Things to Know Before Starting a Business With Friends

 networking Tech Hub/flickr

2. Ride the value wave.
I almost hate using the world "value" so many times, but it does a pretty good job of describing what you should be giving to your new friends. "Value" can mean many things — from a physical gift, to an important connection, to simply a warm feeling.

There's always something to contribute.

That being said, now that you've started that friendship, it's time to give, give, give. Really start digging deep and think about how you can be of service to people. But the key is to think of the relationship as a "long game."

I want you to completely forget about what the other person can do for you. At least for now. For the time being, it's all about them.

Many people, myself included, make the mistake of thinking that as soon as you've made a connection with someone and offered a sliver of value, you can immediately extract value from them by asking for a favor, connection, etc.

SO WRONG! In fact, think of this whole value process as depositing money into a savings account. All the things you do for the other person is the principal. That's not to be touched.

You can only start "withdrawing" value from the relationship once you've contributed enough to generate some interest. Trust me, I learned this the hard way — often bumping my head and wondering why — as I asked important people I'd JUST met to immediately do something for me that was equal or greater value to what I'd just done for them.

Don't be that guy (or gal).

3. Reap the rewards of real friendships.
Now that you've become friends with and demonstrated your value to whatever organization/blogger/entrepreneur, you are officially part of the team. You're someone who can be relied upon. Now you can take on MORE responsibility to help shape the brand and direction.

Here's what I did: I leveraged my new credibility to reach out to more influencers! With the support of organizations I believed in and media outlets I subscribed to, I asked my new friends if they'd be interested in doing a guest post on Rich20Something.

Does this entire process take a lot of energy?

YES. But the rewards are quite literally PRICELESS. It's not about connecting with SPECIFIC people. It's about the PROCESS of identifying individuals you want to meet, becoming great friends with them, and seeing where things go.

Now imagine doing this for decades. You could go anywhere you want, have access to almost anything you desire and know that in an instant, you'd have the resources to solve your toughest problems. Your friends become your biggest assets.

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How to do Volunteering/Networking?
Understand the benefits
Something that you enjoy
Fun
Pay it forward

Where to volunteer:
Your education
Your unique skills
Your passion & interests
What is your desired skills

Determine the goals:
Short term goals (3 to 6 months)
Improve Public speaking
Get new job

Select your organization:
Aligning with your goals
Personal time availability - no of hours per week
Determine the Strategic objectives of various org in your geography. Short list those org which align with your goals.

Leverage your time:
Specify to org what you want to volunteer for such that the work you do is aligned with your goal.
Say thank you and keep in contact.

Market your skills:
Know what are your skills that you want to market.
Keep your elevator speech ready - what your value proposition.
Always talk @ your skills positively.

Jobs - Improve the odds of getting the all-important first Interview call.

Jobs - Improve the odds of getting the all-important first Interview call.

Unless you’re a perfect match for an open job that needs to be filled immediately, applying directly is the least effective way to get a call from a recruiter. This article is to help job-seekers improve their odds of getting the all-important first call.

A short story will help set the stage. I just received an email from an old acquaintance, a marketing professor at a major university in southern California. I haven’t seen him for at least 10 years, so I was surprised to get the email. He attached a resume of one of his students saying “he’s my best marketing student this year, and if you’re looking for an intern, pick this guy up right away.” The resume itself was underwhelming. The skill set was average, the format was bland, and the writing was mediocre. But the endorsement was first class. I’m now in contact with the student, even though I don’t need another marketing intern, but you never know what can happen.

Endorsements matter. Strong endorsements from influential people matter more.

In priority order from best to least best, here’s the rough value score from 1-100 for each technique in comparison to applying directly to a job posting.

1. Get referred by an influential person who can vouch for your performance (100X). This is gold in the hands of a recruiter, particularly if the recruiter personally knows the referrer. This is the best way for a strong candidate without the prerequisites to obtain an instant interview. It's almost as effective as being promoted internally.

2. Get referred by a less trusted source who can vouch for your performance (50X). This is comparable to the email story above. I don’t really know the referrer well, but his position and the wording of the email was enough for me to review the resume. It’s hard to resist someone going out of his or her way to vouch for another person.

3. Get recommended by an influential person even if they can’t vouch for your performance (20X). I get these all of the time, but if the person I know is just passing the resume forward, I don’t give it much credence. If I had an open spot though, I’d definitely review the resume as a courtesy to the referrer, and if it the candidate had a strong resume, I’d make contact.

4. Get recommended by anyone within the company even if they don’t know you too well (10X). In this case the quality of the referrer becomes the differentiator and the less credible, the less the referral is worth. Regardless, if the recruiter has a need to fill the position, the person’s resume would at least get to the top of the stack and be personally reviewed.

5. Bypass the gatekeepers (10X). Unless your skill and experience set is a perfect match to what’s required, your resume will not be reviewed by a live person. To get around this you’ll need to go on LinkedIn and find the head of the department for the job or the hiring manager and be bold, different and creative. For example if the company is looking for a marketing analyst send a cool Prezi competitive analysis presentation to the hiring manager, or the white paper you presented as part of your KickStart project. (Note: these are just ideas. The key is to be different in how you present yourself. Key: think beyond the resume.)

6. By found more easily by reverse engineering your LinkedIn Profile and online resume (10X). Recruiters are constantly searching their resume databases using the skill terms listed on the job descriptions. So if you want to be found make sure you include these same terms on your resume, then go to Google, LinkedIn or Indeed.com and search for people with these terms. If your resume or profile is not on the first page, look at those that are listed, and do what they did to get there.

7. Perfect match on skills and apply (10X). As long as the job is still open and a high-priority for the recruiter, you’ll be contacted directly.

8. Not perfect match on skills and apply (1X). Good luck.
Pushing the "Apply Now" button and filling in the application and associated questionnaire is the least effective and most frustrating way. Sending your resume directly to a recruiter isn’t even on the list. But getting noticed is only the first of many steps in getting the job you deserve. At this next stage presentation matters, but performance matters more.

Other way of looking at Job Search:
1. Mix it up
Go narrow and deep rather than broad and shallow. Use a mix of all the techniques. Start by finding 20 listed jobs every week you think look interesting. Then narrow the list to the best 3-4. Only apply to those where you're a perfect fit and use the backdoor to get an interview for the other ones.

2. Be found
Reverse engineer your LinkedIn profile and online resume to make sure recruiters can find it. As part of this highlight your true strengths and describe these as part of your major accomplishments.
Recruiters are constantly searching their resume databases using the skill terms listed on the job descriptions. So if you want to be found make sure you include these same terms on your resume, then go to Google, LinkedIn or Indeed.com and search for people with these terms. If your resume or profile is not on the first page, look at those that are listed, and do what they did to get there.

3. Bypass the screener
Most candidates get blown out of the water when they're screened on the first call. If you get an onsite interview the chances for getting a job are pretty much the same (10%) regardless of how you were initially found, with one exception. For referrals it's twice that at 20% of the time. This is also why the referral approach is far superior to applying.

4. Build a true network
Networking is getting people who can vouch for your abilities to recommend you to open jobs they know about. In parallel, actively participate in allied business and alumni groups where people in your field hang out. Recruiters review the membership lists and contact the leaders to get referrals.

5. Build a reverse network
Take every call from a recruiter. Listen to what they have to say and then provide a great referral. At some point in the future they will pay you back with a few interviews. This is part of building a reverse network. The other part is helping people you know find a better job.

6. Conduct a discovery interview
If you do all of the above you will get interviewed. To increase your odds of moving into the final round you need to make sure you're being interviewed accurately. Start by asking the interviewer about some of the big tasks the person hired will likely be assigned to handle. Then give detailed examples of work you've accomplished that's most comparable.