It Is Your Brand That Lives Forever

If you’re asked what your purpose is, point to your brand! As morbid as it sounds, your brand may even live beyond you. It is your legacy, and your legacy can be infinite. It is your brand that lives forever, not your title, not your company, not your job. Right now, after all the reframing and rethinking you have done, it is your most important asset for getting you the change you want. But part of driving that change lies in finding the right people to help you along the way. And inevitably, you will need other people. There isn’t one successful individual in any industry who has achieved success without the help of others. Think of someone you look up to. That person has an army behind them, a full team helping them. In fact, it is the team behind the people you admire or want to emulate that is usually one of the driving differentiators in how and why you distinguish them from their competition. Now, think about you, your network, your eventual team. You have identified your brand, but you will now need to connect with others who can direct you to opportunities, assets, actions, and yet more people.

Why Mess Around?

Yes, you’re a free agent looking for a new deal that will lift you out of where you are now, and you’ve got a great brand to sell. But you still need the phone number or personal email of the decision maker who can say yes to what you’re offering. And for that you need the contact info of the person who knows the decision maker. More likely than not, it will take a few more zigzagging connections to reach that person as well. That’s why networking is actually the greatest shortcut there is to success. These days, everyone has an angle, and not all of them are entirely ethical. I have seen it at every stage of my life. And then the students from those organizations would trade the tests like it was a drug transaction. In the corporate world, I have seen people steal leads, lie directly to clients, and even expense their groceries on their business expense account. And in the entertainment world, holy hell! Otherwise, you are bound to get caught, and the margin for error when building that personal brand is razor thin! How else are people who can influence the decisions that will affect your life and livelihood ever going to know you exist, what you’re aiming for, and how you may instill value if you don’t find your way to the people who know the way to those decision makers? It’s absolutely imperative for networking and therefore for bolstering your brand. You can start right now by simply searching for people who went to your high school or college who may have some tangential connection to the company or industry you’re trying to get into. There is an unmatched alma mater camaraderie that causes people to almost always want to help others who share that experience.

Time To Move On

Look for power users with large networks and consistent content posting that generates discussions and comments. You’re taking this in, but it doesn’t lessen your reluctance to go up to a total stranger at a conference, to send a blind email, or to make a phone call to someone you’ve never met. That’s fine, because that is not the kind of networking I am advocating. Something for Something. What I mean when I say networking is much more like precurrency barter. Ten thousand years ago they had it figured out, and we still struggle to understand and execute this simple action called networking. And guess what? Just as with selling, the truth is that we’re all doing precisely that kind of networking all of the time. Everyone you come across is a potential networking possibility, and both of you know this inherently, so it isn’t even mentioned. And each of you is ready and available to consider an exchange of favors that can benefit you both. The perfect model of networking to study is friendship, specifically the friendship formed when you are part of a team. I think particularly of sports teams primarily because I played on teams all my life but also because friendship during a sports contest is so absolutely immediate. It’s a brotherhood, a kinship.

The Big Picture

You have each other’s backs. You can count on each other totally and every minute. That’s networking at its very best. The six of us clicked right from the outset. We would sneak away, ruffle our mics so the producers couldn’t listen to our conversation, talk about things going on in the production, and try various tricks to help one another. And as it turned out, four of us were in the final four, one ended up winning The Bachelorette, one became the next Bachelor, one became the main character of Bachelor in Paradise, and one became a huge hit on Dancing with the Stars. But these relationships built early on saved me on the show, after the show, and still to this day. We had each other’s backs, we helped each other through the process, took pains to find out more than we were supposed to know, and looked out for one another once filming started. You are the sum of those you surround yourself with, so be selective. Make sure there is a balance of value and that you have friends and colleagues that make you a better person. To have great friendships, you must be a great friend, and that exchange of value goes for personal and professional relationships as well. Having a strong relationship with a decision maker will put you in a better position to win. Networking literally goes all the way back to your preschool. As children we start becoming friends with other children, sharing toys with some of them in exchange for their toys, their companionship. This lives through us in all stages of childhood schooling. Evidence of that expertise?