Are You Trading Cards or Building Relationships?

An article by Latoya J. Williams    6 Comments

A couple of days ago, I was cleaning my apartment and unfolded a small piece of paper. This scrap of printer paper held the name and contact information for a woman that I had met through a temporary position that I had taken some time ago for income purposes. When I worked within that position, I gave her my business card and she not having her own, wrote her contact information on a piece of paper for me. As, I was looking at this crinkled note, I realized that I would probably never contact or see that woman again. My encounter with that information deepened my understanding about the fact that building relationships represents the heart and soul of networking. What motivation does one have to build a professional relationship, if you and another person have only traded contact information?

During our time within the same organization, this woman and I never talked about what we were passionate about or the vision that we saw for our work and personal lives. Therefore, a fundamental limitation to our association exists because I have no idea about areas this woman cares deeply about and things she wants to accomplish in her life. I could have access to resources that would be helpful to her, we could share similar interests, goals, or connections, or we could offer support for each other on our journeys. I know that it is not necessary, desirable, or possible to cultivate relationships with every single person I meet professionally. However, the thoughts triggered by seeing that contact information, again, helped me understand more fully the importance of:

1) Being clear about my professional direction

2) Revealing those intentions to the world, and

3) Encouraging others to dedicate energy toward the previous two areas.

This week, I had an opportunity to get clearer about my professional direction and to communicate my interests to other professionals. The opportunity came through my attendance of an ongoing networking event for local business people at a cozy coffee shop in the North Raleigh area (click the image to find a network in your area) . I had an extraordinary time meeting with local professionals from a variety of fields and chatting about a range of topics including technology, music, spirituality, and committed relationships. Interacting with that group of intentional professionals, who have invested time and energy in creating, working toward, and announcing a self-created vision and purpose for their work life, was definitely the highlight of my week. I believe that developing an evolving sense of professional direction and conveying what you love are cornerstones of being an intentional professional.

During the conversation, each attendee had a chance to speak about their work and interests to the group. I had not spoken in front of a group like this in some time and noticed a long-standing tendency of rushing myself and speaking quickly when I am sharing about who I am. I noticed that other people felt much more comfortable speaking at a slower pace than I. As a result, I gained a very timely reminder about taking my time and enjoying the opportunity to share who I am professionally instead of attempting to encapsulate all of my many interests into a rushed synopsis. As I am cultivating relationships by actually attending these and other networking events regularly, I will connect with and get to know these individuals over time. As a result, the contact information that we trade will have more value and meaning for both of us and gain more significance over time.

Some of you may have heard of the networking concept of the 30-second commercial/elevator speech. The idea being to create a verbal blurb about 30-seconds describing who you are and what you do. I have been resistant to this idea for some time due to the gimmicky sales nature I associate to this concept. However, I can now see the benefit of a planned “communique” that will help me feel comfortable enough to slow my speaking pace because I am confident that I am providing engaging and targeted information about who I am as a professional. I will be using a variety of sources to develop my professional promotion skills including this 30-second commerical exercise worksheet. With the intention of helping motivate the appropriate people to want to continue cultivating a relationship with me and helping make my contact information valuable, I plan to craft a creative service announcement.

When I arrived at that networking event this week, the coordinator of the meeting, Martin Brossman, introduced me to a professional networking tool for the 21st century. For decades, we have been sharing professional contact information via traditional paper business cards. At the dawn of 2010, I guess I should have expected to witness the immediate digital transfer of basic information as well as more detailed data (e.g., a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook Page) through a Poken, a new social media business card.  I plan to invest in one of these gadgets and hope that recycled materials are used to manufacture them. The Poken is a neat device, check out the video below: