Written by AFETT Member Allana Steuart

Speaker - August 2009 Monthly Meeting

According to the Oxford Dictionary, there are a number of meanings for a Network. I have chosen two. The first is ‘an arrangement of horizontal and vertical lines that cross each other’ and second - the verb, is ‘to interact with other people to exchange information and develop contacts’. Some of the synonyms are web, lattice, net, matrix, mesh, criss-cross and grid.

From these explanations it gives you a very good idea of what you have to do to start to network. You have to get involved on various levels so that you can exchange info and develop contacts.

But just how do you develop ‘your’ network, and when you get it, how do you use it to get what you want? (Not only self serving).

Unfortunately, for the person in the corporate world, networking is an essential skill for most people, but especially for entrepreneurs - though 48% of people get jobs by referral. (Net)

Networking is a word that is thrown around a lot, but are you doing it the right way or meeting the correct people to help you to get what you want?

A lot of people say they want to know more about networking but they haven’t said it specifically to themselves what they want it for.

Like everything else you want to achieve you have to have a plan. To make it easier, I have used myself in a lot of examples to show action and consequences. So, onto …

(1) Building a Network. You probably have a lot of networks and you don’t even realise it. Start simple. Your family: mother, father, siblings, children - if you have any, aunts, uncles, cousins and your friends.

Example: I wanted to get my pepper and pimento sauce into a particular office and my nephew who was talking to me about a health plan at the time was very happy to take some samples and distribute it among his colleagues.

Example: I am now working on a project trying to source sponsorship for a race. Don’t ask why I put myself in dat in this guava season! I wanted to find out who handled a particular energy drink, so I asked my son and he gave me the name of the company, which is where one of my nephew’s wife worked, and voila! Sent her the proposal by email, she passed it on to the Brand Manager with her name and contact number.

Example: But eh eh, I know the CEO of Unilever, so I sent her an email asking if she would send on the proposal to her Brand Managers, which she did. Not having heard from any of them I suddenly realised I didn’t have their names so sent her a follow up email. She was on holiday and out of the office till next week, so I spoke to her assistant, sent the proposal again and guess what – ah get a sponsorship!

(2) Expand the Circle. What business associations do you belong to and what’s your level of activity there. Well, you’re in one right here (AFETT), so what are you doing to get yourself known to your fellow members? Are you on a committee? Do you come to meetings and take part in activities being put on by these associations?

Example: On a fundraising committee I was spearheading a few years ago, Suzanne Gowasack – a new member to AFETT, joined my committee. After one of our committee meetings, we were liming (as usual), and the talk turned to Suzanne’s daughter.

Example: When I launched my business, a large part of my decision was that I was sitting on an RPA committee organising the seminar for Child Care Solutions, when Lorraine Rostant, owner of Rostant Advertising, spoke to me about her need for an event manager for a particular project. Light bulbs went off in my head, and to make a long story short, I got the job!

Example: AFETT member Vitra Bishop needed to find an apartment in a short space of time. I had just spoken to a friend of mine who was going to Australia for six months and wanted to sub-let. Voila! Vitra got her apartment.

Now, networking doesn’t always work when you send it out en masse – sometimes it’s better to send to one person or a few people. When you send it out to a large group, everybody feels that the next person is going to handle it, so sometimes it’s better to send several times to small groups of people.

(3) Circle: It could be your church, your child’s school PTA, Lions, Rotary. You’re helping others and making a lot of contacts at the same time.

Signing up for Seminars can also be a great way to meet people in your like profession – especially when they are free!

Example: I recently went to a seminar at the Bureau of Standards. Learned a lot about labeling and also made some good contacts.

I really wanted to go to the seminar put on by the TTHI but at $4500TT, that was a little bit much for me.

I have a data base in an Excel spreadsheet where I enter all sorts of information: suppliers I’ve worked with; I take down numbers from vans I’m passing in the road or numbers from the papers. I keep not only business cards, but leaflets I get in my postbox and cut out stuff from the newspapers.

I make a note of people I meet in all sorts of odd places. Last year on a project with All Sport Promotion I had to meet visiting teams that were coming in for a hockey tournament. At the time, I had access to the Immigration area at the airport and met a number of the officers. Now have a direct line to the department at Piarco. It just so happened that when I was working in Tobago in February (on Pigeon Point no less!), I happened to meet one of the officers and we struck up a conversation, only to realiae that his wife used to play for a club called Rangers (I’m an old hockey player myself). So I now have his cell phone number. I may never have to use it, BUT you never know!

I took these remarks from a website when I was doing research for this presentation:

Regrettably most people start with a networking group by looking for immediate results: - so you know that old 80s adage about going to cocktail parties, passing out business cards and working the room (that’s so 20th century) and somehow getting that call the following morning with the big contract - not happening.

It’s now about meeting and building rapport and maybe only meeting two or three people and establishing a social interaction, so you’re remembered when you make that call or send an email.

Networking is a daunting task – I personally hate going to functions where I don’t know anyone. Unless you’re super confident it’s not always easy striking up a conversation with someone so you should arm yourself with some tips on the things to say – I went up on two websites last night About.com and Rileyguide.com which had some fantastic things to do and say (so that you would be rememberd) while you are a particular function/seminar etc.

To Google or Bing now, type in ‘tips on networking’ and there is a lot of information available.

I don’t do networking through cocktail parties and work a room simply because I’m not invited! If you see me going around a room it’s because I know a lot of the people or feel comfortable in the environment and see it as my responsibility to help other people who may be there for the first time.

There is an excellent article in the recent Linkage (Amchan’s magazine) that speaks about making valuable connections. I’ve asked Lara to find out if it would be possible to have it placed on the Afett website. It talks about Centres of Influence – people in the business sector or in your target market that you may be able to access, and people who are Connectors, a term first used by the author Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point. People in social environments who seem to know everybody.

The only slight negative point is that most of our networking advice comes from the North American market, however, Trinidad is a small island and there are very few places that you go where you don’t meet someone. (behaviour) So in my case, networking for me is a very casual affair – by the very fact of my age and social personality – both my husband and I played hockey (we belonged to clubs), my husband is a member of the Oval, as are my brothers and sons. All four of my children work and have active social lives – another source of networking for me.

When I started on this sponsorship project (which is abysmal by the way in this economic climate) my approach was to list who I was going to approach by category – advertising agencies, Government and corporate. I knew someone in all the agencies except one, and the one I didn’t have a direct contact with, I called my nephew who had worked there previously, to get some names! Government wasn’t as easy but an ex Afett member was the person to talk to at the TDC and the gentleman from SportTT I had met last year when I worked with ASP – though I haven’t been able to get him to answer my calls yet!

In the 21 companies I approached I had a contact in most or went to someone who did.

I didn’t even realise how many people I knew until I started preparing for this presentation, and it’s also made me realise that I haven’t been networking as I should have!

When Colleen (Cameron) bullied me into doing this presentation I really didn’t even realise the extent of my network, because I had never taken the time to do the steps below.

So:

4. When you start to use your networks are you prepared with how to approach people?