Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
-Abraham Lincoln
This is one of my favorite quotes when I have to talk about effectiveness. We can bombard and carpet bomb, but laser-guided systems remain very efficient.
We are constantly bombarded by emails, anything from real-estate to financial newsletter to miracle medical treatments. We call them Spam. The spam is something that works on law of averages. Simply put, if the hit rate is say 0.5%, then sending out 1000 emails will give 5 conversions. If this ratio remains constant, there is no extra effort in sending out 100,000 emails to get 5000 conversions. 4995 conversions for not doing anything extra but just spam! 80% of all email messages sent in December 2007 were spam. It surely works. And spamsters are working on law of averages.
We often see people spamming others - about themselves. There are people who rejoice in having hundreds of friends online. The networks like Linkedin (my previous post) are an important item in everybody's networking arsenal. But the question simply is: If having more friends leads to more success, then why are not all the people with 500+ or even 1000+ connections not CEOs or Chairpersons.
If I remember right, Linkedin says the average connections of CEO are 27. But then, what are these people doing right that we might otherwise be doing wrong? Why are they successful with so less number of connections? The answer lies in precision targeting and not in spamming. Here are some (a list of ten) Dos and Don'ts in sensible use of Linkedin. This would also apply to other business networking sites, but may not be particularly useful for "fun" networking like Orkut, Myspace, and Facebook etc.
1. Every connection is a give and take
Connections are built on the back of mutually reinforcing commitment to friendship and respect. The biggest drawback in blind connections is that a golden opportunity/ connection become lost in the haystack of numbers.
Connections are also about giving. If a connection is made, ask yourself what is it that you can give to other person? If a connector is not interested in any aspects of the other person, then there is little utility in how they can progress, unless an active interest is taken. If no interest is taken the opportunity is lost. Respect your connections and you will be respected for it.
2. Effective Connection
Golden connections are lost in the seeking score. And every connection has capability of being a golden connection - that is the central theme, right?
The connections we build have to be effective. In other words, they should not be blind connections but something built upon over the years. The trust built will enable people to connect better for benefit of all. Effective and high-impact connections are core of networking and not fluffy acquaintances.
3. Unable to reach
Some people make connections with people just so that they are connected to some person you want to get connected to. You are pawning them to reach your objectives. Apart from being highly unethical, it is sure way for disaster.
They try to build relationship, just for the heck of it, even if they have nothing to offer or are interested in the other person. The connection is just an incremental number in the game.
4. Numbers online do not guarantee number offline
Having big number of friends online does not guarantee proportionate amount of business/ benefits offline. The main reason for this is connections are not “effective”. You are connected to person for years but the person would not have enough trust to place a purchase order with you. The trust, if it had been built up over a period of time, would give more results. But it takes effort to build that trust and to respect a connection.
5. Take it offline
Another biggest reason for failure of online connections is - they are not engaged in real world. The relationship will be more effective when connections meet in real world to understand each other better. This results in very high impact networks. When such a transition does not take place, the chances of fizzling out are higher.
6. Mind your business
Networking sites are not the be-all of networking. There are many more important things a person can do to build effective relationships like joining an industry or professional association. It is not worth time spending adding more connections which will not be used. And blind connections are definitely bad investments and they take your time and the opportunity costs are good fruitful connections
Most important of them all is, if a person is good in his /her business, connections will be sought after and so you too develop. Best way to know experts in your field is to be an expert yourself.
7. Fool's fame is not worth it
It was Archimedes who said "Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth". Similarly, give everybody a few but strong networks, that person can move the planet.
Higher numbers of connections are evident online-snobbery, when one cannot invest time to nurture those relationships. For example, if a person how many of the 500+ connection people really understand the interests of their connections or know when the birthdays are?
8. Lost contacts
The beauty of online networking sites it that you can track your friends for a long time and know details about them. In past, the connection was usually beyond mend, when somebody moved out of town and neither phone numbers nor addresses were unavailable. Being online solves these problems and you can be in touch with people long after they have toured the world.
9. Personal details
Though this is not directly linked to any of the above, I just wanted to add a note of privacy. Everybody wants people to get in touch with them, it makes them feel important. Linkedin has a status-bar that constantly reminds you that you have not filled in all your personal details. Why do you need to fill those details in first place? It is irrelevant and not a good idea to post all your details on the open platform. Be a little paranoid when you are filling up the details.
10. Positive retention!
Another way to look at this mass-befriending campaign is: the friendships online die out for many reasons including as simple as loss of email addresses. If we assume the retention of online connections as 5%, then having more number of friends today will give us more number of long-lasting (and effective) connections in future. I would agree to this only partially. For example, if two persons A and B are connected but each has 500 connections, what are the chances the relationship between A and B blossom into a partnership? Since it is unlikely they would have invested their time in building relationships, the connection would be futile. The connection would work out if one of the two persons has commitment to make the relation better. This commitment will filter out the husk and enable a good connection. In other words, this is spam.
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