Networking

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Wallace’s Weekly Wrap
Happy Friday you wonderful humans.

It’s not what you know, but who you know that really counts… or at least that’s what we have been led to believe.

Ever since starting my personal training course in 2010, I’ve had the idea of networking constantly reinforced to me by teachers, lecturers and other professionals. A consistent reminder, that the only way to get ahead, is to network. That to be successful, you must build your network, you must find people and businesses who can help you get where you want to go.

The way I see it, this system is backwards. Networking for the sake of networking has always left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t get into business to leverage relationships for my own gain. I got into business because I wanted to foster relationships, to connect with like-minded people, to build my tribe and to create community.

Transactional networking, one that is predicated by professionals in suits scratching and clawing their way up the corporate ladder, is not why I’m here. The ‘ If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours ‘ networking culture does not make this world a better place. It’s a negative-sum game, and one I’m not interested in playing.

Fostering genuine relationships, adding value where you can and contributing to your community without the need to transact a reward in return, that’s the game I want to play. The positive-sum game which results in everyone leaving better off is the way we should look at networking.

So maybe, instead of ‘It’s not what you know, but who you know that really counts’ we should be teaching the following

‘ Foster relationships, add value where you can, be exceptional at what you do and good things will happen ‘

If you know people who are good at what they do, refer them, share the love, send them business. Not because they will do it for you, but because you know they are good people, doing good things. This is how we all win. The person you refer gets what they came for, and the professional who does good work, gets the opportunity to do more.

At Virtus we celebrate small business, and do our best to support and contribute to the community that is building around us. One of the ways we want to perpetuate this is to refer to all of the professionals within the Virtus Family, all of those who are good at what they do, and deserve more work to come their way.

If you hit this link… www.virtusperformance.com/family then you’ll be able to see a list of the businesses that we are more than happy to vouch for.

Wallace

Ps: If you’re not on the list, and you should be, email me back!

Pps: A few good men, Simon and Hans, are putting together a genuine networking event called the Social Netwalk. Watch this space.

Below: An Excerpt from Simon Sinek’s Book: Better Together.

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