It’s called networking. Net. Working. And that working part suggests as need for, well, work.
Work defined as timely and deliberate follow-up and follow-through.
Work defined as being proactive and thinking about strategic introductions that you can make, and not merely waiting for someone to ask “do you know someone that can____”.
Work defined as a plan of action for all of your networking initiatives and not merely showing up and “winging it”.
Yup—work. Or not.
And if not, then best to stop doing it because poor networking is actually worse than doing no networking at all.
Bad networking leads to wasted time, poor impressions and money spent with no ROI. So, while the last thing we might need is more work, the best thing you can do is remember to make your networking count.
