“Work on building your network when you don’t need it.”
Grace Killelea
I (Theresa) was recently talking to my son, Bryan, a senior at Towson University, about writing an email to the CEO at the company where he has worked part-time for the last four years. He, like many college seniors, is planning for “life after college.” Well as life would have it, I had just been to a talk a few days before and heard this sage advice, “Work on building your network when you don’t need it,” and couldn’t help but share it with Bryan. He’s just learning how to network but I’m not and I need to be reminded of this from time to time so I thought I’d share it with our readers this week and then pose some questions for you and me to consider as we make our plans for 2013.
How consistent are you at building and maintaining your network?
Are your networking efforts producing results or just a lot of work?
How frequently do you assess the effectiveness of your network?
How do you define and sustain your success in networking?
The bottom line is that in business (and in life) relationships are key to our success and so working on building and sustaining your relationships all year long has to be one of those goals that we carry from year to year. Who we build relationships with might change each year, but the behavior of working your network is ongoing. As you plan for 2013, don’t forget to include this goal on your list. I know I won’t!
