When Networking, Be Helpful

Posted on 29. Dec, 2011 by in Blog, Networking 20/20

Information can be an important way to help someone - photo by Idea go

In the networking world, the most important thing you can be is helpful.

Charming is nice, of course. It makes for easy conversation and good entertainment. But what use is easy conversation if it’s also empty conversation? Being charming won’t matter a thing if you’re not also helping. If your target is getting something out of the conversation they’ll remember you much more favorably than if you had just been charming. And ‘help’ in the context of networking can be nearly anything that effects the target in a positive way: information, a solution to a problem, an easier way to do something – you get the picture.

Of course, this is great news for us introverts. Charming may be harder for us to do. But helping someone out? That’s definitely less of an issue. You just have to know what problems you can solve, and what useful information you know or can easily learn in the course of your daily life.

Referrals definitely fall into the category of help. You may not be able to help your target directly. but if you can refer them to someone who can help, you’ll have helped them and the person that you referred them to as well.

On top of that, you may think about what you as can do for other people. Maybe they’re in a bit of a tough spot, and you can offer to help them move at the last minute, or run an errand for them, or make a phone call to someone you know who can help make their life a little easier. This will be different for everyone, of course, and within your capabilities the possible ways to help someone will vary from target to target. This just means you have to be expansive when thinking about ways in which you can help people. The possibilities are endless, because we each have so much potential.

Networking can be incredibly easy and effective for you as long as you remember to set out to help people. People will remember and reward those who help them, though they may not plan on it, and it may be way down the line. But as Ivan Misner says: Givers Gain.

Tags: help, helpfulness, helping, information, problem, solution