How To Make the Right Friends through Networking

1. Do A Personal Network Inventory. Sixty-eight percent of you are going to find your next job through networking. Fifteen percent of you will use a search firm. Nine percent of you are going to find your future job through newspaper ads while eight percent will be through direct mailing. So you’ll need to do a personal network inventory. It has been estimated that if you were to pass away today, your passing would impact two hundred and fifty lives. Call these people now. They obviously care about you. That is your personal network inventory group.

2. Ask For Introductions. Now ask your group for introductions. Do you know how many people you are away from meeting Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey or the President of the United States? It has been estimated between two and ten introductions. The median is six. I met a woman named Ginger. She decided that she wanted a date with Ted Turner. This is about ten years ago and pre Jane Fonda. It took her four introductions to get a date with the billionaire. Do you know anyone over at XYZ Company? No, but I know someone who might. Ask people for introductions. You can meet anyone you want even a billionaire!

3. Take Your Boss To Lunch. While you’re working on getting the ideas for names, take your boss to lunch. Now this means that you pay. Say to your boss, "Who do you know? What do you think I’m good at? Where do you think I need improvement? Will you be giving me a good reference?" Ask him for that reference. Ask him for ideas of leads that you should go and meet. A friend of mine took his boss to lunch. That day a recruiter had called his boss with a job offer. The boss did not want the job. He sent my friend there and my friend got a 50% pay raise. Your boss is well connected. Take your boss to lunch…it pays for itself ten fold.

4. Ten Minutes To Success. I want you to make a phone call and say, "So and so gave me your name. I would like to have ten minutes of your time. Would any of these times, 8:40am, 10:50am, or 3:20pm be convenient for you?" Do not make an appointment on the hour or the half-hour. Psychologically, when you ask for those ten minutes and ask for them on the hour, you are asking for an hour of their time. When you ask for time on the half-hour, I hear a half-hour. I will not give that to you. I will give anyone ten minutes. When you talk to them say, "How did you get to your present position? What do I need to know how to do? And who should I meet?" Then, go back home and write a thank you note to the individual who gave that time. I did not say type or email. The reason I suggested the writing is that most employers know how easy it is to email and are not impressed. It is so easy to get a boilerplate thank you note off your computer. What’s not easy is for for you to sit down and carefully pen a note. Think how you feel when you go to your mailbox and there’s a hand written card with a stamp on it.

5. Remember Your Peers. Whenever you find information that is not of use to you, give the information away. Maybe, it’s still of use to you, still give it away. There is not a finite amount of data available. Give away as much information as you can. This is what happened to me. When I went to graduate school, I had a Professor named Dr. Noonan. She specialized in Russian-Soviet relations with America. Years later a packet arrived on my desk. There was a Moscow Conference, which was of no interest to me but I remembered her. I picked up the phone and called Augsburg College and got Dr. Noonan on the phone. "This is Colleen Watson. I took your class". "Oh yes, Colleen. How are you?" I told her what had happened. I lost my job and started my own company and we were doing pretty well. Six months later the phone rang. "Colleen, I just got a email from Moscow. A conference that was going to be held for sharing of intellectual papers from the colleges has been expanded to the emerging capitalist society for women. Would you come and represent the United States as a businesswoman at the University of Moscow". I was among three American businesswomen that spoke there. My distant friend is my dear friend now and I have a new friend, her name is Elvira Borisovna from the Moscow University of Management. The only conversations we ever had were in German, our common language. You don’t know when you are giving things away that it’s going to come back as a global experience.

6. Be Nice - You Don’t Know Who’s Watching. A woman that I met was the Human Resources Director at the Board of Pensions in downtown Minneapolis. She told me her sad story. She had worked for Control Data in Human Resources and went through the great layoffs in the 1970’s. She did all the exit interviews and said goodbye to all of her friends. Then the day came for her. She took her resume, went out and at one point stopped at 3M. She was very sweet and nice but they had nothing for her. She thanked them for their time and went on her way finding this job at the Board of Pensions. Oh but then life took a very nice turn. She fell in love and she married a man from Menomonee, Wisconsin. Now she’s driving from Menomonee, Wisconsin to downtown Minneapolis. That’s one hour each way. Someone at 3M heard about this. They remembered how nice she was and sent her resume to Swiss Miss in Menomonee, Wisconsin. Guess who is the head of Human Resources there today?

7. Become A Critical Relationship Yourself. I started this company ten years ago. Instead of believing that we were the only ones, who could do a good job of placing people in jobs, we immediately joined our own association and met all these other people, who specialized in zillions of other ways. We started giving away business. I refer to it as my "Miracle on 34th Street" philosophy of doing business. You are all probably way too young to remember the story. Santa Claus is sending everyone to Gimbels’ down the street instead of keeping them at Macys’. In doing so, by giving away so much business, we have grown into a multi-million dollar corporation and we are the biggest of our kind in the United States specializing in the recent college graduates. Mind you, I probably can’t help you but I have a list of the people that I know who can. We give it away. I would like you to do the same thing because you will be unable to keep up with the returned favors.

8. Don’t Make The Worse Networking Mistake. Believing that you can go out all on your own and find your next job without any help is the worse networking mistake.

-- By Colleen Kay Watson, Career Professionals, which helps job seekers find entry-level opportunities in Management, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Finance and Administrative positions. For more information about Career Professionals, please go to http://www.gocpi.com or call 952-835-9922.