Straight from the Farmers Field: 5 Lessons on Effective Networking

This week we invite Guest Blogger Martha Reavley, Associate Professor of Management at the University of Windsor.

Plant Something

Networking is like farming – it requires that something is planted – an idea – by a single network member or by a group and that members work together to nurture and grow that idea. Share your ideas and listen to others.

Mutuality

Farmers know a great deal about symbiosis as do great leaders. If you hate networking and think it’s phony, change your perspective. What can you offer?  How can you serve? Strong networks are as much about the giving as they are about the receiving.

Get a Growth Mind Set

Farmers have faith that next year’s crop will grow and that the harvest will be better than ever.  They learn from failure.  They don’t quit. Even in bad years, they are optimistic about the coming spring. They have a growth mindset and you need one too. It is in the positive response to failure that one learns and grows.  Great networks provide a safe sounding board and new perspective on life’s events. They can feed a growth mindset and allow you to become hardy, optimistic and confident. 

Get Out More!

Through networking events, you plant seeds and offer the fertile soil for others to plant. Who will harvest and how and what will be harvested is for the future to decide.  That is the fun and excitement of participating in networking events.

Build Your Legacy with the Next Generation

Farmers want to leave a legacy.  They want to pass the farm to the next generation. Our talented youth know things and have experiences and insights that we all need in our networks.  Make talented youth a priority in your networks.  The future of our community depends on this.

Plant something great in your network – be a farmer!

Guest Blogger:
Martha A. Reavley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Management 

Odette School of Business

University of Windsor

 

Back to the First Blog

Back to the Past 

Let's say we have a flux capacitor and a DeLorean DMC-12.  We go back in time to August 21, 2011 and take a look at Building Circles first blog published at 8:52 am:

Title:  Why Am I Writing This Blog? 

To share stories with everyone on our experiences with connecting with people.  

Being part of many networking groups and having experienced success in some and having been part of creating a couple of successful groups are the inspiration to create this blog.

Building Circles is about connecting business people together to create business relationships and opportunities.  Good discussions and shared experiences of what is working and what has not worked are great topics.

Looking forward to Building Circles with you!

Back to the Present

It's been over four years since I've been sharing my stories and experiences with you.  I'm enjoying it!  Thanks for following and for your feedback.   Thanks to the Guest Bloggers for sharing their stories.   

I've attended a lot of networking events and have met many like-minded people.   We have had good discussions and created opportunities for each other.  It is true when you say it, set goals and think it, most of it does happen.

Back to the Future

I like the path I'm on for the future.   Getting up early, working hard, balancing work and family, enjoying leisure time and hitting the gym several times a week.  I'm learning every day and still letting go to keep growing and to keep accomplishing my goals along my journey.

What does your future look like?  What are you doing to build your circles and develop relationships to help shape your journey? 

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything - Marty McFly

Top 3 Challenges Leaders Overcome

The top 3 challenges leaders overcome in my opinion are:  Fear, Negativity and The Past.

Fear

I have shared with you in the past my biggest fear is the fear of failure.   This inspires me to focus on being successful with all decisions made. Sometimes I am wrong and like most leaders, good thing most of the time we are correct.  Thanks to our instincts and our circles of people around us who help us make the right decisions on a consistent basis.

Leaders overcome the fear of making mistakes and overcome the fear of letting others down.   This does take some time to learn the skills to deal with these fears.   It still can be a challenge some days and I just keeping working on it to push the fear aside and deal with it.

Negativity

If you want to find negativity in any aspect of business or life for that matter, you can find it because as we know "misery loves company".   Staying optimistic and moving to always being positive is a very difficult challenge for some leaders.

Recently, a close colleague commented how can I always be so positive and find something good to say about everything.   This is not an easy accomplishment and like all leaders, I do have trouble with it and fall into the negativity trap on occasion.

Bouncing back, changing your path to positive and learning how not to fall back in the trap are ways to cope with removing negativity.   The other way is to remove the "nay-sayers" and focus on the positive people you interact with.

The future is actually very bright and it has not be written yet, so I challenge you:   Be as positive in all your business and personal thoughts and decisions.  Who is up for the challenge?

The Past

Experience is a good thing and sometimes not such a good thing.   It is OK to acknowledge the successes and learned mistakes from the past.   However, to dwell on the past most of the time or to keep comparing to the past can hold you back as a leader.

Finding the right balance between your past and your thoughts of the future to focus on the moment makes you a better leader.  Remember the pendulum is always swinging and as a leader, what are you doing today to ensure the pendulum is swinging forward?   If you live in the past you may be stopping the pendulum.  

Inspired by:  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248718?utm_content=buffer3e531&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

What is your biggest challenge you are overcoming as a leader? 

Following Through

The topic of following through keeps arising when talking to other entrepreneurs, managers and sales professionals and thought I would share some updated thoughts on this subject.

Following through is one of the key components to building and maintaining business relationships.  Remember my blog about the three key components to good communication:  1.  Follow-up  2.  Follow-up  3.  Follow-up.

Are you going to do what you said you were going to do?  Can I trust you are going to take care of this?   If I share a challenge for you to address, will you follow through and keep me updated?   

Go back and read the questions again.   All three answers MUST be yes without hesitation, without a "yes but..." answer.   It is alright to follow through in a reasonable time with "I am still working on this and do not have any new updates.   I will call you with an update on specific day/time"  

When we have one or more no's, there is a lack of follow through.   This leads to reasons why people feel they are not being taken care of.  We can make up a number of reasons and excuses and sometimes these are valid.   The truth is we must take it upon ourselves to follow through.

Today we rely heavily on e-mail and sometimes picking up the phone with a short message (or talking to a person live!) is the best decision you will make to relay your updates.  Does anyone else use the phone to communicate?

In a recent meeting with an owner and a controller, it was shared the main reason I was invited to the table was their long-term technology partner did not follow through.    This did not sit well with them after such a long relationship and for the first time they were considering a second opinion.  If their partner would have followed through on the last order of business, I would not have had the opportunity to start a discussion with them.
 
Do you have the discipline to consistently follow through?