Business Networking & Sex: Survey Says . . . Time Spent Networking
In this short video, I share a portion of the results from the survey of 12,000 businesspeople on which my most recent book, Business Networking and Sex: Not What You Think, is based. The results I discuss here indicate that there is a very powerful, direct linear correlation between the time spent networking and business success.
You’ll also hear some colorful comments in the video relating to the book and my co-authors (e.g., “Frank, you’re a bad, bad boy . . .” ;-)).
After watching the video, please leave a comment explaining whether you feel the indication of the statistics is true or lacking based on your personal networking experience.
Networking is not a part time intermittent marketing activity. Either you do it consistently putting time aside in your diary or else use some other form of lead generation. Networking has to be done with purpose in mind, to target a particular type of person for a specific reason.
Looking forward to your seminar in Ft Myers…..and hope to sharpen my networking skills on how I can target a particular type of person.
Thanks AnnMarie. I look forward to meeting you in Florida!
Interesting that women spend less time networking but gain better results. Is that because we can get our point across clearer and are more open to listening out for leads?
Hi Caroline. I’m not sure it’s because women get their point across clearer. If anything, men seemed to be more ‘direct’ in their communication. Based on the data, it is pretty clear that women were more ‘relational’ in their interactions and men were more ‘transactional’.
That appears to be the biggest reason for the difference.
Instinctively, I understood folks had to KNOW, like and trust me before the referrals would come my way (I am in the financial services industry) – I have been strategic in my time spent networking,so I agree that I am far more ‘relational’ than ‘transactional’. I had to “buck the system” from what I was told/trained in my industry, in terms of cold-call marketing, etc & the referrals and clients contacts as a result have mirrored my marketing efforts. Cold-call marketing most often resulted in transactional referrals, while my networking referrals resulted in relationship-driven client interactions. Simply put, referrals from my networking partners were the types of client I wanted to build my business with.
Stats tell the story .