The Key to Networking
Released: Mar 5, 2007

Instead of a key to a car or a home, imagine you have a key that opens the door to an important relationship with a colleague that another person would like to connect with. Let’s say you hold the key to this relationship, but you don’t know the person who’s asking for it. Would you give it to them? Of course not! Why? Because when you give a referral, you give away a piece of your reputation; if it’s a bad referral, it hurts. Intuitively, you’ll only hand over the keys to someone you know and trust.

It all comes down to establishing credibility with your referral partners. Effective networking is about building relationships with others who can refer you once they’ve come to trust you, have confidence in you and feel loyal to you. This truly is the key to networking success. And this process takes time. This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.

The norm in successful networking is building a relationship to generate long-term referrals. Think of it this way: When you get to the place where you can, without hesitation, hand over your physical set of keys to someone, you’ll be in the best place possible to begin asking for keys to their relationships.

To find out more about the key to networking, read Dr. Misner’s full article by clicking here.