How do you network most effectively? (2 of 2)

Here’s part two of my thoughts on how to network most effectively. This time it’s about building a network by helping others and staying in touch.

For me, building a network means giving value, staying in touch and having a place where people can find me. In part two, I continue with specific stories about helpfulness, online communities, my own domain and a newsletter that follows me through different companies. The video is from 19 November 2010.

Build a network by connecting other people

If you hear someone talking about a challenge and know someone who can help, offer to make the connection. Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing what you were talking about. A good acquaintance of mine is actually really good at exactly that.

Don’t immediately think about getting ten per cent or something else out of it. People need to feel you’re giving them value.

You can be valuable through your own expertise, so people can call you about something specific. Or you can be the person who knows others and connects them. Both are highly valuable.

My starting point at an event is: What can I do so these people go home knowing more or better equipped for what they want to do than if I hadn’t come?

Two hours of free help came back as a contract

A director in the IT industry once asked if I’d help with some challenges in his business. I spent two hours with him completely free of charge.

Later, we’d created Supportfighter, a support tool that was entirely web-based. In the video, I describe it as an early software-as-a-service solution in Denmark, from around the time Salesforce began emerging. I get a little unsure myself about how many years have passed and correct myself along the way.

We needed a contract in Danish and English. It wasn’t easy because there weren’t many solutions of that kind to draw on.

For example, we sold to Bonnier. If they used our tool for support throughout Scandinavia and it went down, readers of Illustreret Videnskab and other magazines couldn’t get answers to subscription questions and other enquiries.

What if we lost data and statistics? Or the solution was down for a couple of days? The hosting partner could make a mistake, we could make a mistake, or the internet could go down.

The contract needed to consider the customer and the fact that we did our best, while also ensuring we didn’t go bust ourselves if something happened. I imagined months of back-and-forth, mistakes along the way, and perhaps 150,000 kroner or more for a really thorough contract.

Then I remembered that the director I’d helped actually ran an early software-as-a-service business himself. I contacted him and asked if he had anything.

Five minutes later, I had a complete contract. In my account, I could change the company name, service name and a few details myself in around fifteen minutes.

In the video, I estimate it saved me several months of work and perhaps 200,000–300,000 kroner. That’s my estimate of its value, not an invoice calculation. The story is about helpfulness, not about anyone being able to use someone else’s contract unchanged.

I’d helped him out of kindness without thinking of getting anything back. Later, the favour came back.

My Christmas greetings took three days

Think about how you can give to the right people, then stay in touch with them. At the time of the video, I’m not very good at the staying-in-touch part. I simply don’t have enough time day to day and have become privileged because so many people come to me.

But when I had the time and was more active with that part, I wrote a personal Christmas email to everyone in my network. I did it for six or seven years in a row, until I had around 300 contacts in Outlook. It took three days before Christmas, but people were delighted.

In the video, I say I now have nearly 700 contacts and have rather given up on that task. I could standardise it, but it wouldn’t be the same.

If you want to maintain your network, a Christmas card or a little birthday greeting can mean a lot.

A relevant article can keep the connection alive

When you read an interesting article, think: Who in my network could benefit from this? Send it with a couple of lines saying it made you think of them.

It can take 30 seconds, and then you’re remembered. My suggestion is that your network hears from you at least five or six times a year with small, relevant things. A birthday greeting, Christmas greeting, text message or three lines in an email.

Make it personal. If you send a standard greeting to everyone, don’t make it look like something special for the individual. You can send a photo of yourself and the family by the fireplace and make it clearly a group greeting. I don’t think it does much, but it’s better than nothing.

If you want to make it personal, make it properly personal. Dear Hans, I was thinking of you. Write a line about something he or she has done during the year. Then the recipient can feel you’ve actually thought about them. It doesn’t need a fancy family photo.

Find your target audience in an online community

I think online networks are among the most exciting things. Everyone, including people who aren’t entrepreneurs, should think about how to use them.

Start with your target audience again. Where are the people you want to reach? There are communities for golf, entrepreneurship, mothers, young men, handymen, police and people who work with the written word.

I mention Amino, Min-Mave and Connery as examples in 2010. I use Connery as an example of men aged around 16–30. Those are my illustrations of audiences back then, not a current review of the websites.

Choose a relevant community and get into a routine. My suggestion is to visit every day, read a little and write at least one comment or post. Perhaps 20 minutes a day. Or three hours a week spread over Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The only thing you need to think about is how to help other people. If you keep helping, people start wondering who you are. They look at your website and search for contact details.

It may take six months before you notice anything. But my experience is that a lot can start happening once it gets going. If you want to network and aren’t spending any time online, I think you’re missing an enormous wealth of contacts and knowledge.

Have your own meeting point online

You also need somewhere electronic to bring your network together. We can call it a hub, although I’m not entirely sure that’s the right word.

Some use a Facebook page. Facebook can be good for networking, but you never know what the platform will do. It changes features and terms. One day it might remove something, or the terms might become ones you don’t want to accept.

I even mention the possibility of bankruptcy, although I don’t think it’s likely in 2010. My point is the uncertainty of building your entire presence on something someone else controls.

My advice back then is to buy your own domain, for example using your first and last name, and get a place you own. I use UnoEuro and am happy with the price and the people behind it. That’s my experience at the time, not because I get a commission for mentioning them.

Your identity needs to survive a change of job

Set up a blog and create a personal email address on your domain. For me, it’s important that the address follows the person.

If you sell your company or it goes bust, it’s unfortunate if your entire identity is tied to its address. I use an invented paddling-pool company as an example: If you sell it, your connection to newsletters and acquaintances may be attached to something you no longer control.

Of course, you should also use the company’s identity in company matters, whether you’re an employee or owner. And using your personal identity at work can annoy a boss, so think carefully.

But in private, you’re you. You probably won’t have the company you work for or own for your entire life. Why should your whole online identity disappear when you sell, get fired or change jobs?

You need to be able to take your network with you and be a brand in your own right rather than starting more or less from scratch.

My simple American site cost 5,000 kroner

You don’t have to blog every day. I explain that my American site, martinthorborg.com, cost me 5,000 kroner to have built by some Americans. It’s very simple, and I don’t blog there.

I use my Danish site for the blog and my talkshow. I also say you could make something cheaper or do it yourself.

What matters is ownership. I call it my piece of online real estate. When a company has been sold, or a platform disappears one day, I still have my own place that follows me.

A newsletter gives you access to people who know you

A little newsletter perhaps four times a year can share what’s happening personally and professionally. It depends on what you do.

I send a newsletter myself around four times a year. It’s taken ten years to build, and at the time of the video, I say almost 20,000 people receive it.

When I start a new project, I can tell them about it. Building that kind of access takes time. You may never reach 20,000, or perhaps you’ll reach 50,000. The number itself isn’t the point.

Imagine you’re an employee with a particular area of expertise and a newsletter where 4,000 people follow your thoughts on the industry. I use that as a hypothetical example of something that can increase your value in a salary negotiation, because you can also attract attention to products.

If you want to move on, you can tell your network you’re looking for new challenges. It doesn’t have to be 4,000. It can be 400, or the right 200, one of whom might know your next boss or a company that needs your skills.

As a business owner, you can also tell your network about your next company if you’ve sold the previous one or gone bankrupt.

In the video, I use a crude hypothetical example: If Queen Margrethe suffered a cardiac arrest on the day you issued a press release, your story might be completely drowned out. But you could still tell your own network about the project through the newsletter.

Networking needs a purpose and should keep challenging you

Don’t network just for the sake of networking. Have a clear idea of why you’re doing it.

You also need to be able to say goodbye and thank you to a network where you’re no longer developing. Stay in touch, but move on and keep challenging yourself.

That way, you build both your network and your own value. You and the people you’ve helped along the way can lift each other towards the goals you want to reach. I tell my own entrepreneurial story and experiences of building companies in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

Also read part one on choosing and contributing to a network.

Best wishes, Martin