Extending Your Focused Network

Think of your network as an ever expanding universe of links, alliances and ties. I'm a visual person, I think of my network as an interrelated highway system. At each junction are acquaintances, friends and professional associates who can call on me and to whom I can call for help, information, idea exchange, business opportunities, social experiences. The best way to maintain and extend your Focused Network is to:

• stay active with networking efforts
  
• be visible
  
• reconnect with those you've met
  
• find ways to become trusted and valued in other networks
  
• put out quality leads and referrals, and that's what you'll get back
  

Think of the people you meet and connect with as individuals who need and want more business contacts as seriously as you.

What can you do for them? . How can you help?

Your efforts will come back ten-fold.

Adele Sheily, Ph.D., wrote Skills for Success. Now in its eleventh printing, the information is still extremely "on target". She writes "Those of us who are achievers also enhance our careers by building contacts and alliances with others. We look for opportunities to establish new relationships and maintain our existing ones. Connecting gives us perspective about how we work, provides us with different approaches to problems and sharpens our ideas of what is important, relevant or new. And makes us visible to others like us."