Authentic Networking

For many people, networking equals ‘sucking up to important people at receptions’, and ‘faking interest in boring people in the hopes that they’ll introduce me to someone that I want to meet’. You have to talk to strangers, which is uncomfortable, with a hidden agenda and try not to let it show. It’s all kind of fake and forced. Or is it?

It’s our attitude towards networking that makes it tiring or annoying. Often, it’s also our own insecurities about our professional worth and possibilities that make it seem like we have to attack a seven-headed dragon with a glass of sparkling wine in its hand.

Question is, is the only way of networking? Could it be possible that ‘networking’, in its broadest sense, is for everybody? That we’re already doing it, right now? That there are different ways to network, and that at least one of those ways can work wonderfully for you?

You already know what the answer is. Of course! This book will show you a few ways of networking that you may not have thought about. However! Don’t think that there is some magical way of lying on your couch watching TV, and still build a network. It will take some time and effort. But you’ll be able to use what you like and what you’re good at to do it.

It’s the difference between stretching, and changing. In this book I’ll be inviting you to stretch. That means I’ll ask you to do things that you are able to do and that are natural to you, but that you’re not used to. That’s a different thing from requiring you to change, where you have to become someone else entirely. People are attracted to authenticity combined with communication skills, and that’s exactly what you’ll learn in this book.

Curious? Let’s get started!

1. Introduction
2. What is networking?
   1. What is Authentic Networking?
3. Kinds of networking
   1. Direct and Indirect networking
   2. Offline and online networking
4. About learning to network
   1. The In & Out of Networking
   2. Practice makes perfect
   3. One thing at a time
5. The laws of networking
   1. We’re all in the Web
   2. Law 1 – No man is an island
   3. Law 2 – 6 Degrees of Separation
   4. Law 3 – The Matrix of Purpose
   5. Law 4 – The Law of Give and Take
   6. Law 5 – The Law of Reciprocity
   7. Law 6 – The Law of Atmospheres
6. Networking strategy
   1. Step 1 – Why?
   2. Step 2 – What?
   3. Step 3 – Who?
   4. What type of networker are you?
   5. The Social Styles Model
   6. Step 4 – Where & When?
7. Step 5 – how? networking techniques
   1. Dale Carnegie’s Top 5 Tips
   2. Networking Do’s and Don’ts
   3. Your Professional and Public Self
   4. How to enter groups
   5. Be a Giver
   6. Be a Go-To Person
   7. Follow up on your contacts
8. Conclusion