EDITORIAL FEATURE
Business Networking
Leadership Strategies
By Gail Stolzenburg
I
n his famous book on business management, “First Things First”, Dr. Stephen Covey teaches about focusing
on the most important action items
first. He does that with a demonstration
in which a glass is filled with water, sand,
gravel, and big rocks. If you attempt to
put the water, sand, and gravel in the
glass first, there is no room for the big
rocks. If you put the big rocks in first,
there is plenty of room for the gravel,
sand, and water. Most people would
agree that the big rocks for success are
business networking leadership strategies. Everything else such as the to do
list which is like the gravel, the challenges which are like the sand, and the personal activities which is like the water
can fill in around the networking leadership strategies or actions.
In networking leadership, like other
areas of business, the knowledge is generally present but the biggest problem is
the failure to implement. You may have
heard that it’s not about who you know,
what you know, or who knows you; it is
about what you know about them and
what they know about you. It is also
about how you develop that information into a strategic alliance. “A robust
leadership network helps provide access
to people, information, and resources,”
says Curt Grayson, author of Leadership
Networking: Connect, Collaborate, Create. “It goes beyond knowing or linking to
lots of different people. It is about being
able to use those connections wisely to
solve problems and create opportunities.”
Here are six key steps for your networking
leadership success:
1. Expand your network to include contacts who may never do business with
you but when you develop a relationship
with them are willing to make introductions for you and even refer business
to you. Meeting business owners with
common target markets is important
but it is equally important to have diversity in your business relationships.
2. Communicate regularly with your
customers, collaborators, and referral
sources. The fortune is in the follow
up. If it has been six months since they
have heard from you, they have forgotten about you. Face-to-face is always
best but time-consuming phone calls
are great but most people play a lot of
“phone tag” and only one out of 17 emails
is read so what is becoming most effective is texting. Rather than making every
contact a sales call, use if to celebrate
birthday