Networking is boring, and other shocking news...

8 Sins of networking and how to turn them into virtues

As you mingle your way through limp handshake after self-provokating TED-Talk, making narrow escapes from conversations on ‘market penetration’ and blockchain (since everyone is now an expert on blockchain) en route to [the cheese platter]…

🤫 The inconvenient truth is…

Your “network”, as an entrepreneur, wantrapreneur or seasoned business person, is the ultimate flex.

Even if you know nothing, have nothing, start from no where, no formal education, no cash, no talent, no answers, no clue, and no idea how the hellofresh to get out of a mess this magnificently substantial (as you sip cuppa-soup on a long-suffering friend’s sofa)…

But you go out there and build a network…

Then you will have at your disposal the one thing that matters in the battle for business supremacy.

A network is a cheat code holding answers to any and every test faced in a business.

It’s an intercom tapped in to the whisper networks of those with the keys (to cash, contracts, trust of those holding the pen). it’s a team of advisors and sages. It’s a test bed for ideas, a sandpit for innovation. It’s an ultimate equaliser capable of transcending boundaries and cutting red tape. It’s a dynamic ecosystem where connections intertwine like vines, creating webs of opportunity reaching beyond horizons first foreseen. It’s where every conversation, every handshake, and every shared love of a miniature meatball, increases the chances of stumbling upon that elusive lucky break.

👎 The problem is…

The process of getting one of these ‘NeTWoRkS’… is one of the most poorly understood and horrendously executed wastetimes pastimes in the business universe.

At best, for those who ‘just love to meet other professionals’, contributive to an expenses report longer than the justification of a politician’s duck pond at his second home.

At worst, evoking fear in some and dread in others and an unconscious personal policy to avoid NEtwOrKInG at all costs.

Which presents a dilemma: we know a network is a good thing. We know network-ing, sucks (and almost everyone sucks at it).

It’s time to fix the broken system.

Ladies and gentlemen, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, I present to you:

8 Sins of networking

(and how to turn them into virtues)

This isn’t your typical “how-to” guide. This is a full-blown exorcism of everything you thought you knew about networking. It’s the real stuff that’ll make you a legend at your next conference, startup pitch event, or hell, even in local coffee shop. Ready?

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