Pivoting yourself for the new way of doing business – What kind of net-worker are you?

the new era of how we do business networking has become more important than ever before. While each state is releasing its own guidelines in opening, it’s fair to say that businesses are almost universally reopening under restrictions, such as allowing fewer customers, requiring workers and customers to wear masks, and enforcing social distancing. Even as governors lift orders, stricter local orders may remain in place by city or county.

The new challenge is getting appointments (if even possible) with the decision-makers. What kind of networker are you?

Source: Harvard Business Review

Operational Networking; is primarily a manager’s tactical execution strategy to build good working relationships with people that can help them do their job.

Personal Networking; moves away from operational networking strategies, and now focuses on self–growth, from external sources. This could mean numerous things, lack of social skills, lack of knowledge, and limitations about professional domains. It is taking yourself out of your comfort zone. Asking for help!

Strategic Networking; is the explicit transition from a functional manager to a business leader. As defined by investopia.com – “Leadership in business is the capacity of a company’s management to set and achieve challenging goals, take fast and decisive action when needed, outperform the competition, and inspire others to perform at the highest level they can.” To achieve this both operational and personal relationships do contribute, however, strategic networking is a source of people that are outside their immediate control, and hence leaders will have the ability to figure out and enlist the correct people to get there. They have no embarrassment to leverage relationships and ask for guidance. They focus on the greater good. To quote Stephen Covey – “Start with the end in find”. While there are many ways to execute as a leader your primary objective should always be executing efficiently and effectively, which brings the best ROI to your organization.

Recently, I coined the phrase do you work your way up, or do you work your way down. Think about this for a moment. Its kind of common sense, right? You have two options (i) leverage your strategic relationships with introductions to the decision-makers, or (ii) work your way up the corporate ladder fighting with gatekeepers and endless frustrations where it becomes a numbers game.

Here are some statistics for you to compare your sales closing against market averages:

Source hubspot.com

Change is inevitable! How to be become and maintain being a successful business leader, flexibility and versatility have become of paramount importance. The single commodity that cannot be replaced is time. Harvey Mackay rightfully stated “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”

Set yourself up for success, and find the correct mechanism that can empower you to make strategic relationships.