If you're looking for employment only...II

In the previous post I was talking about some of the problems with the strategy of the person who sent me this. When we network, we want to keep in mind what OTHERS are looking for so we can be of service to them. [Read the earlier post for more.]

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Hi Charlie,

I'm sorry that I haven't utilized Linkedin. I am doing well at work and did receive a raise, though I would like the opportunity to check out the company that you referred to in your email to me.

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The second thing I believe we should give our attention is what appears to be a survival strategy. Zig Ziglar talks about Survival, Security, Success and Significance. I won't go into all of them, but many people are in survival mode in more than one area of their life. In survival mode there is not a lot of planning because we keep taking care of our "right now" needs.

If we plan ahead, we can much more easily get out of survival mode and into security mode or higher. What I see in this email is that she got her current "problem" solved with the raise. Many people stop right there when they could be putting a little energy into building a network that can help them if they're ever in that situation again [Of course the network could help in other ways, but I'm talking about staying out of survival mode in this example.]

You could take 15 minutes to a half hour every day to nurture your network by staying in touch with people to see if there's anyone you can introduce them to who can be of help to them with whatever is on their plate right now. Some people have wondered about why they need LinkedIn and one reason is simply organization. It's convenient to have it in one place. I mentioned this convenience factor in the very first post of this blog.

In learning to network well with LinkedIn, you really do learn by doing. It's experiential. You're in a situation and you experience how much easier it is when you're using LinkedIn.

Does this take some work? Absolutely. I look at it this way. When I am in contact with my network and I understand what people are looking for, I can more easily keep them on my "mental radar screen" so that when I run across a good match for them, I can refer that person to my original contact. I can have them take a look at the profile of the person I know on LinkedIn and vice-versa.

You can bet that when I am looking for someone or something, people step up and ask me what they can do for me. How can they help? Who do I need to meet? Some are just doing it because they always do it. Others are responding because I have helped them in the past. If you're up for a position and you're known to the person or have been introduced by someone who respects you, that can be a deciding factor versus a person who is an unknown quantity. Build Relationship Build Income. It works.

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