Row with both Oars
When you row a boat, you go around in circles if you only row with one oar.
It’s the same with network building. One oar represents the effort you put in to expand your team.
The other oar represents the effort you put in to:
These activities tend to be very satisfying. Most people enjoy building relationships and helping others. We refer to rowing with this oar as networking.
Rowing with the network-building oar, on the other hand, is based on activities such as:
These are the activities required to build an exponentially growing team of team building advocates. This typically leads to a huge amount of advocacy. However, such actions are typically not as fun as meeting great new people already part of the network.
Network-building activities require consistent effort. However, we have many tools that can help you become far more effective and efficient.
It is essential to realise that your role is not to sell the CC.
You are inviting people to join your team and use the CC’s tools, culture, and meetings.
The CC is there to help individuals build their own relationship-based networks.
Your network-building results will reflect how consistently you build your network.
It’s easy to become excited about a shiny new object. However, we all know that results come from taking a small amount of action every day.
You can devote as much or little time to network-building as you desire. The CC has no expectation of you in terms of your level of activity.
You can choose to immerse yourself in our positive environment and do very little else if you like.
However, it is essential to be aware that the primary purpose of the CC is to help our members build their team of team-building advocates and interact with others in the CC doing the same. That means we do talk a lot about network building rather than just networking.
We intend that you will reap a lot more than you sow. But if you sow nothing, you’ll reap nothing.
What's a good network-building goal?
Initially, we recommend building a team of 5 network-building partners. We call this Core-5.
After that, we encourage you to find people who also develop a team of 5.
That means you would have 25 people in your team and be recognised as being Core-20.
We talk a lot about duplication. That simply means introducing enough people to find some who follow your example and (with your help) participate in building their networks rather than just networking with others who are already part of the CC.
You could achieve Core-5 by introducing people that you already know, like & trust.
However, if you need to build your entire team of 5 by reaching out on LinkedIn, it is not a mountain to scale. Using LinkedIn alone, you can easily achieve Core-5 in 1 or 2 months.
Our experience tells us that 200 relevant invitations to connect on LinkedIn will result in you on boarding 5 people you will enjoy having as part of your team.
What do we mean by relevant connection requests?
Glad you asked!
First, we recommend that you have words to the following effect at the top of the “about” section of your LinkedIn profile:
Although we may not be able to do business together directly, it is highly likely that I will know others that will be good connections for you. I'm always happy to help others who also have a pay-it-forward attitude.
This lets those viewing your profile know that the main value of knowing you is the people you can connect them with that may help them. The value in knowing you is not what you can personally provide. In other words, you don’t expect to transact with them directly.
Of course, they will also likely know people that they can advocate you to once trust has been established.
Second, in your invitation to connect on LinkedIn, you mention something you genuinely liked on their profile, such as:
It's great to see we both believe in making a difference in partnership with others.
You then always send your version of the following:
If (like me) you believe in connecting beyond LinkedIn, let's connect with a view to meeting face-to-face on Zoom (or equivalent).
When you follow this process, like-minded people will connect with you on LinkedIn and agree to a short meeting on Zoom because it's clear that you are there to build trust with them before expecting anything back.
In other words, you see enough alignment on their profile that you are prepared to invest 15-20 minutes of your time meeting them face-to-face and potentially helping them meet some relevant connections in your vast network. As your network and the network of others in the CC expands, the number of connections you can make for others becomes enormous.
It’s vital that you realise that you have the potential to significantly help those that you reach out to through your connections. Also, it is not your intention to sell them anything.
As a result, you should feel great about reaching out to others. And if you choose carefully, those people should be grateful that you are offering to help them.
This process rapidly builds trust with others that become part of your team, and they will be keen to reciprocate and help you.
So, how long would it take to achieve Core-5 if all of your connections came through LinkedIn?
If you reached out to 10 people a day on LinkedIn, it would only take you 20 days to send 200 connection requests.
If you sent 5 per day, it would still only take roughly 2 months.
Consistency is the key. In other words, you are doing a small number of activities, such as sending connection requests every day.
Why do we focus so much on LinkedIn? Initially, we suggest you speak with people you know who may also be interested in network-building....
When you build a large, exponentially growing team of team-building advocates, you develop a highly valuable asset. In general, such a network is an...
Don't just manage it
