Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 2

Photo by Ani Kolleshi, Unsplash

Networking Strategies Vol. 2

Understanding Networking

    Networking is one of those general terms that may go misunderstood by individuals.  I believe it extends a little further than the definition of just “acquiring contacts”.  If we think of it in this way though, it is far better than thinking that it is something that it is not.  It has been important in my journey to grow my network that I think of the network as being “mutual contacts with purpose”.  I believe this definition could serve everyone better for several reasons.

    Understanding mutual contacts with purpose requires us to avoid mass-friending and following others on social media.  I believe that defining networking in this way gives us substance to what we are looking for when we refer to the purpose, as well as gives a mutually beneficial relationship with the contact by understanding that you cannot be networked with another without them also being networked with you.

Premature Pitching

    A problem that I have encountered enough to define it as a problem is the act of prematurely pitching your idea to a potential network connection.  This almost always fails in successfully securing another member of your larger team or network because, even if they were on your network, they may not vibe with your current idea.  It is important that we don’t go looking for network connections for professional or even personal use by trying to lure them in with a current pitch or idea.  This is exceptionally important from the entrepreneur’s point of view primarily because when you are salivating over an entrepreneurial idea, this is a natural tendency. 

    The network member relationship must mutually exist between two parties before any ideas, pitches, or opportunities can be presented.  This has been a showstopper for me.  I get all wound up about a recent idea that I have been building on, go to grow my network, cant stop thinking about network applications to this idea, and end up just delivering the idea to someone I am trying to add to my professional network.  Chances are the individual that I’m speaking to thinks that I’m a kook and likens me to a door-to-door amateur vacuum salesman or trying to sell him a life insurance policy via a cold call.

    It is important to deliver your interest in creating a network member relationship during that first conversation and avoid discussing business.  I would also argue that it takes some reinforcement of that relationship further before discussing profession business especially as it applies to entrepreneurial ventures or opportunities.  From the receiving point of a view, if you are trying to sell an entrepreneurial journey cold, the individual on the receiving end of this conversation would probably think that you are very desperate and if you indeed have a following that you have acquired through your methods, you are probably created a cult instead of an organization.

Network Member Relationship Theory

    I like this idea just because it so very well meshes with principles of leadership and team building.  The meat of this meal hovers around individual relationships with members of your network.  It is the difference between a cold call and a warm call from a salesman’s perspective.  This is a theory that describes the process of initially contact a potential future contact, gaining rapport by building a simple relationship, growing that relationship, and then having an integrated network-member that is more likely to actually hear any ideas that you have.  This is important in professional networks because you want as much honest feedback as you can get.  The better you develop relationships with members of your network, the more fine tuned your feedback machine is.

    The powerful application of this is that you can dial in exactly how much effort you plan on putting into various network members before you intend to ask for feedback on an idea or problem.  On giant platforms like LinkedIn, you may find that you must put a good deal of effort to build the relationship of your various connections before you are able to extract any honest feedback.  I have found that smaller forums and message boards of entrepreneurs and professionals usually are more willing to engage you on the short term just because of the common ground of being a part of a smaller community.  I have been capitalizing on this a lot and plan to do so much especially with the number of growing small community forums that exist.

Network Member Roles

    Having a network of contacts is an important part of developing professionally in the world.  We all communicate and exist in and through relationships.  Without doing this would make life a very lonely experience.  As we study building networks for professional purposes, we need to keep some attention on who our network members are and what roles do they fit for us.  When we dive deeper into the realm of building a very large multi-functional professional network, we are going to encounter many different types of contacts and network members.  It will be clear that some members may seem to be better at giving advice and consultation while others tend to be more available to give feedback.  You may find that some are interested in current projects that you are working on and are eager to learn about them.  Some may just be there for the drama, and some may be present to provide negativity or nothing at all.

    The key point in mentioning roles is that while we are focused in growing our network, we should be growing it in the direction that we want to use it.  Over the course of the past year I had read a couple books that mentioned networking, so I sought to network, and network I did.  I was so willing to have followers, network connections, and friends on Facebook and Instagram that I was literally connecting with anyone willing to click the accept button.  The point here is that many of the people who I connected with filled the role of nothing, ergo I never really created a network, rather I created a few internet accounts that had a high number of connections.

    The solution to my problem here was to identify a few roles of network members that I wanted to create and then actively look for network members that could specifically fill that role.  There is still a lot of filtering through people through various attempted connections and contacts, however, it becomes clear when you find someone that can provide at least one aspect of the things that you are looking for.

    It is important to not be too restrictive in this area.  Chances are if we are honest with ourselves and set out to connect only with those who could help push our current entrepreneurial venture forward, we would all end up with a very small list of connections.  I think diversity here is important.  We need to properly identify various areas that can be occupied by networking members.  I think it is important to create an email or contact list and list them individually by their potential roles to be served in your network.  I think that if you are properly developing a network member relationship then you could even discuss this with them, as well as ask them what roles that they are wanting you to fill as a member of their professional network.

    When thinking of specific roles, I like to broadly define many categories.  Mentors, mentees, those that provide consultation and advice, those that provide feedback, those that are able to help promote a venture, those that may be directly interested in helping a venture succeed, potential partners, other dreamers, general colleagues, and even unknown are all roles that I consider when I initially meet someone new.

Conclusion

    Even if we are going nowhere and doing nothing, I think it is obvious that human beings are social creatures.  Having a network of contacts is essential even in the dull activity of nothingness.  If we escalate this thought to the next level of having goals and working towards them, it becomes even more clear that networking is necessary.  Our success depends on the success of our ability to effectively network.  I think focusing on the effectiveness of network should precede focus towards an efficient system of networking.  I do not believe that we should do one and completely avoid the other, however, I believe that one should come before the other.

    I believe that once we are effective at building our network, we need to continue this into a more efficient vehicle for networking.  Efficiency in networking will be a topic of a future content submission.

Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 1

Photo by Athena Lam (Unsplash)

Networking Strategies and Theory Vol. 1

    It should be no secret that I am using this blog to catalogue my journey through business and entrepreneurship as well as being a leader.  I have currently tasked myself with growing my network of connections and contacts to create an environment conducive of easily reaching people that could help me along the journey. 

    One problem that I have ran into recently is the actual implementation of actively networking with others.  It is an easy idea to ponder but grows more difficult the more you think and the less you do.  It seems that I have found myself in a rut of complacency regarding where I am currently at with networking and due to this, I am experiencing some troubles growing my span of influence.  This exists on my personal blog as well as various social media platforms that I use.  I plan to actively shift this by implementing new strategies that I have researched and plan on discussing here.

    One of my end-game goals is to create an entrepreneurial network capable of supporting various ideas and ventures that I may want to pursue either currently or later in life.  In order to accomplish this, I need a pretty broad network of individuals across various fields with various specific and general interests that mesh with my own.  It goes without questioning that convincing people to network with you is a difficult task, as once you exhaust personal contacts the efforts grow rather cold.

The Limited-Platform Approach

    In the beginning, I began looking to network across many different platforms.  I distributed my time evenly across all these platforms, thereby restricting my success on all of them due to my time constraints.  I believe instead of being active on many platforms I should focus on just a few and integrate them with one another.  The downside to this is the potential to miss the big fish because I failed to cast the line into the water.  Unfortunately, I’m afraid that this is an acceptable risk due to the time constraints of not being able to monitor and manage accounts myself with consistency.  If the neglect of certain platforms to maintain others results in the missing of a big fish, then all other things aside, this approach may end up being less risky.

    My action in this is to throw away Instagram and any other platforms that I haven’t currently invested a good deal of time in developing.  I intend to keep what I would call my big three: Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.  I also believe that it is necessary to keep my Google based platforms, as I am publishing this content on one of Google’s programs.  I believe that the time spent in developing the Facebook Group associated with this blog is enough to justify keeping it as well, if for nothing else, to reverberate content that I publish elsewhere.  I will suspend growing across other platforms for the immediate future and continue to develop these.

Experience with Blogging Circles and Their Exclusion

    In the past months I have become a part of many groups of bloggers promoting their blog.  These are excellent communities to join and they all provide such great tips and learning experience.  My biggest problem with these now is that they are all other bloggers wanting to publish content and have it recognized.  Inherently publishing content and operating a website is a very time-consuming thing.  When I run the math in my head, an active blog manager only has a limited number of hours left in their day.  This led me to the realization that if you intend to produce substantial results from content, you may have to look for horizons outside of others looking to attract people to join their purpose.

    This poses a challenging problem for an entrepreneur with a currently limited network with a low capacity to grow due to time constraints stretched across multiple platforms.  I believe the problem lies in direct relevant engagement and then confirmatory engagement.  Neither of these happen when you are a part of circles or groups searching for something of their own.  I am now going to actively practice limiting my participation in circles of other content creates and try to expand my network in the direction of those actually interested in the subjects that I intend to create a network from.

Defining a Member of My Network

    So far before I officially add a contact to my network, I have declared two requirements.  The first is that I have had a direct relevant engagement with that person.  This would mean that we had an exchange where the basis was topically related to a subject that I am interested in including in my professional network.  The two key factors are engagement and topically related.  The subject of interest must be present as well as enough interest from the other party to engage in discussion.  If these criteria are not present, as I often found, I had a one-sided conversation that resulted in boredom and frustration.  I made it a habit to try to achieve this relatively quickly or try to forecast whether that an engagement would be present.

    I believe once a direct relevant engagement has happened, you can tentatively include that person in your professional network.  I believe full inclusion depends on whether a follow-up engagement happens which proves that they were not just committing a nicety and were good conversationalists.

    Since I have defined these criteria for building my network, I have found that I have a lot of potential networking partners to re-evaluate and categorize.  I found that I had thought a lot of people were a part of my professional network related to my desire to become an entrepreneur, but were friends appeasing me for conversation. (Which are good to have, and I consider myself lucky to have them all!)

Conclusion and Key to Success

    I believe these and many other strategies and networking theories are the key to succeeding with delivering entrepreneurial visions to the world.   None of us is as strong as all of us.  In believing this I truly believe that teams, teamwork, and team building are key to succeeding in a lot of projects.  I believe that especially for entrepreneurs, the secret sauce here is in the quality of networks of people that are built and relied on.  It is for this reason that I will continuing publishing content and progress of my personal networking journey to outline the knowledge that I have gained and demonstrate to myself and others how I intend to apply it.

A Call to Network: an Entrepreneurial Venture

A Call To Network: An Entrepreneurial Venture

    At the turn of the year I decided to take a hiatus and re-think a lot of what I was doing in my spare time.  I had decided that I would begin networking for future entrepreneurial ventures and begin building teams with people interested in various areas of study.  I knew that this would require a break from my writing and networking here, however, I have begun further reconstruction of this website and began implementing steps into tying it into my evolving project regarding leadership and business.

    I frequently conjure up ideas of business models in my head.  I fancy imagining technologies and inventions that could potentially change the world for the better.  I have made a commitment to at least construct a complete model and framework for a business that is focused on research and intellectual property licensing.

My Current Interest: Networking

    At this stage I am really seeking to expand my network of peers to include students of business, law, chemistry, accounting, economics, marketing, and physics.  I would not be opposed to expanding my network into the realm of professionals.  My only concern with that is much this would initially be in theory.  I am wanting to network with individuals who stand to benefit from the networking itself, as compensation for time spent networking isn’t feasible.  Future environments resulting from networking producing future compensation is hopeful based on my success with networking and finding like-minded people.

The Current Project: Clean Energy

    In maturity the entrepreneurial venture would be to support research and development of various scientific theories that may or may not be in practice.  Revenue would be generated initially from corporate start-up business strategy outside of substantial initial direct investment.  After infancy revenue will be generated by the licensing, selling, or further developing novel technologies through self-licensing followed by marketing.

Areas of Research

    This is the area that initially sparked my thought that I believe to have a lot of opportunity for growth.  Areas of research would include thermal electric generators and their amplification, the Lorentz Force and it’s affect on various elements and ionic solutions, photogeneration via manipulation of excitable electrons, and many others.  Obviously, these subjects are not exclusive, and I intend to continue exploring other subjects and areas of research, but these are the ones that have for a long time fascinated me.

    At this point I believe the knowledge discovered itself will be valuable and the methodology used to obtain results equally valuable. 

Following Insights

    It is widely accepted that the forces that hold the building blocks of our universe together do so with much energy hanging in the balance.  Look at the different of energy released by say 100 kilograms of refined petrol next to 100 kilograms of refined uranium when approached a little differently.  Imagine if we could take that 100-kilogram explosion of uranium in a trickling, controlled way.  I am not suggested that uranium is an element of interest, I am interested in moving away from dangerous elements and into a safer era of clean and green energy.  My reference to this is merely to point to looking for energy in areas where it may be hidden, such as within the strong force exerted between protons and neutrons, or the electromagnetic force that holds electrons in orbit around their nuclei, and ways to experimentally determine if we are able to harvest that energy in a way much more useful than that of chaotic nuclear fission.  In the event something like this was successful, it may result in batteries for many of modern-day devices that would last for not days, but years or decades.  Imagine a car that would not need to run on fuel, because the energy generation within its battery would be enough to power it for 10 years?  I am not interested in the fluff, so to speak, but rather in the journey of learning that could happen as a result of curiosity.

    I am not opposed to publishing findings via scholarly articles or submitting them to journals, so long as it does not undermine the due course of success for the organization.

Feel free to contact me on any of the platforms that I have listed on my CONTACTS page, preferable via email Jglennsturgell@Gmail.com or Josh@Joshuasturgell.com .

5 Benefits of Blogging as an Entrepreneur

5 Benefits of Blogging as an Entrepreneur

Why Blog as an Entrepreneur?

    Taking some time to think about entrepreneurship and how I would approach the subject, my mind kept returning to blogging.  This is probably because starting a web log, or blog, is my latest venture that I have been dumping time in, and I believe that it is a good starting point for articles on entrepreneurship.  A blog doesn’t have to be an entrepreneurial venture.  I remember a decade or so ago when online platforms such as Myspace and Xanga were dominant blog-style social media outlets where a good bit of cultural development happened.  From here we were introduced to Facebook and a host of other social media websites that resulted in the people of the earth becoming much more connected.

    Fast forward a bit and we can see that blogging has become a multi-faceted tool to get yourself out there, however you want to be out there.  Some use blogging as a means of communication and connection with others, while some use it as a tool to publish writing.  I have found it particularly interesting that there are those passionate about writing that are using their blog to become entrepreneurs.  I am amazed at all the different ways to monetize a blog and impressed with the ingenuity of the generations that take part in this fun activity.

    More than just engaging an audience and recording parts of their lives, bloggers are building a brand and starting a business on just about everything.  This is where I got hooked, because of the unlimited potential of what you can do with a blog paired with all the powerful tools and techniques you can use while writing about what you love.

1. Create a Brand

    Blogging really allows you to create a brand that is you.  It allows you to take your passions and interests and turn it into hope.  Creating a brand that is you also allows a level of self-expression that is hard to match.  When you identify the things that are yourself, you are actively creating your own brand.  When you apply yourself to the world via the many social platforms, you are distributing your brand.  This is very fulfilling and regardless of whether there exists the topic of monetization, the act of doing it is very rewarding.  By creating yourself as a brand, this opens many routes of opportunity and potential that you can tap into in the future as well as the opportunity to deliver the blog into a full-fledged business.

    We must understand what we mean when we say, “to create a brand.”  A brand is the essence of one’s product or the mark placed upon it by the name.  Blogging allows us to define who we are and thus fabricate our brand.  We can then use this to pursue many avenues of entrepreneurship that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to without a brand.

2. A Deeper Understanding of Your Content

    You can literally choose anything to blog about.  The subject that you specialize in will commonly be referred to as a “niche”.  You will typically find that even if you choose something that you are very knowledgeable in, to write and deliver rich content that is fully encompassing will require a little bit more research deeper into the topic.  This need to research the topic deeper is a great motivator to expand your knowledge.  This expanse of knowledge will undoubtedly lead to personal growth.  For this reason, I believe that blogging about anything will lead to a deeper understanding of something that you are interested in, and this is intrinsically valuable.

    It is commonly recommended that bloggers, much like in other areas of marketing, find a niche to specialize in and focus on that.  The more general your topic, the thinner your audience.  By selecting one ultra-specific niche or topic and sticking to it, you can focus on the readers that are interested in this subsection or specific area of a subject.

    I am potentially breaking the rules here.  I homed in on leadership as my primary niche, but then follow it up with the term business, that may encompass many things.  I do this on purpose but am constantly evaluating my decision.  My reasons for this are twofold.  The first is wanting to take advantage of the specific target audience that I am interested in.  I want to grow as a leader as well as help others grow as leaders.  I am very passionate about leadership specifically and want to direct my content towards this.  The other is that I want to explore entrepreneurship as a business student and use this as not only a method of being an entrepreneur, but to explore the entrepreneurial scope of this adventure as well.

3 Expand Your Knowledge and Networks

    When you begin blogging, one of the first steps is to get involved with blogging communities in order to be heard.  This doesn’t happen accidentally, and it requires effort on the part of the blogger.  This requires time reading and absorbing other writing and content.  The time spent poring over others’ blogs and reading their articles will increase our own knowledge on topics that we know and enjoy, as well as give us plenty of opportunity to learn about topics that we are unfamiliar with.  Getting involved with blogging will directly add value to you by opening you up to reading material that you otherwise would not bother to read and learn things that you otherwise would not bother to learn.

    If you are largely introverted as I am, you simply do not communicate with people regularly.  Getting involved in the blogging community gives us an excuse to actively engage others with the same interests in us in a very direct and positive way.  In my short time blogging I have had the opportunity to become a part of circles that I otherwise would not be a part of and reach out to several people that I would have otherwise not.  This has provided opportunity for connection to other real people that I would have neglected, and the connection itself has proven healthy and beneficial to me.

4. Present Entrepreneurial Opportunities

    Perhaps my favorite, starting and committing to a blog will open opportunities to expand your entrepreneurial horizons.  It is no secret that there are many successful internet marketers out there that make a handsome full-time income from presenting themselves as bloggers and dealers in e-commerce.  Starting and maintaining a blog is a hobby for some, and a full-time job for others.  Regardless of why you begin blogging, maintaining your blog will present opportunities to expanding it into a business.

    By getting involved in blogging and engaging the community surrounding blogging, we will make connections that we wouldn’t otherwise make that are involved in industries that we wouldn’t otherwise experience.  We can easily see where others have gained success and seek to mimic them, as well as try our own strategies on an internet platform with relatively low monetary investment.

    The discipline of maintaining a blog in and of itself allows us the opportunity to see a business in full swing.  Peering in at other businesses and studying their models, I saw a lot of operations, but little of the other activities involved.  It wasn’t until I began blogging that I realized how much went into marketing and marketing strategies.  Running your blog as a business is highly beneficial in helping to understand the input required for becoming an entrepreneur.  From here, the sky is the limit, and you may take the blog anywhere you wish.

5. Grow as a Writer

    It is no secret that being a writer takes both discipline and skill.  Blogging regularly exercises the muscles of your mind that correspond to writing.  This builds our creative muscle as well as technical skills.  If being an author and reaching an audience is a goal, then growing as a writer will only help us achieve that.  Despite thinking that blogging is just sloppily recording some content and posting it on a message board, it is much more than that.  We may get as much or as little as we want from regularly blogging.  With just two months into blogging, I already feel its benefits on my mind.  The downside to this is the discipline it takes to regularly create and submit content for others.

    The goal of growing as a writer should be rooted in personal development, however, there is nothing wrong with seeking the benefits associated with it as it relates to being an entrepreneur.  There are many career writers that survive on the income that they generate from writing.  There are many more that wish that they could make a survivable income from their writing.  Blogging would be a good place for these individuals to start to develop their skills and build their brand.

The Take Away

    An entrepreneur is someone who organizes and operates a business or businesses and assumes the risk.  A blog is frequently treated as a business and relatively easy to monetize.  If you are interested in entrepreneurship, I would recommend exploring blogging as a possible avenue to begin your entrepreneurial ventures.  There are many more reasons for this, and taking this route really requires you to open your brain to begin solving some of the most basic entrepreneurial dilemmas that you will face in any industry, such as; how to make money, what you are going to do, and how you are going to do it.  We can further use our blogs to grow as individuals and explore ourselves. 

Addendum

    When I had decided that I wanted to start a blog, I was really aiming for a few certain things.  I wanted a potential avenue to make additional income, I wanted to do something that would leave me feeling accomplished, I wanted to do something that my family would be proud of and could readily see, and I wanted to grow myself as an individual.  All these things are what has set me on my journey with my chosen niche.  After exploring the culture of bloggers, I noticed that there were a lot of people that were blogging about blogging and were successful at it.  I did not want to be a niche blogger about blogging, because it just didn’t mesh within me.  I still want to avoid this, and this bit of content wasn’t intended to redirect my interests away from leadership and business principles and toward blogging, however, I wanted this to be a lever of entrepreneurial exploration.

    The more I explored the culture of blogging the more that I discovered that there were blogs tied to a lot of industries.  I searched and researched many topics and industries and found that many of them had a blog or some sort of modern media associated with them as a part of their marketing strategy.  While I personally haven't begun an entrepreneurial journey and then created a blog in order to support and drive it, I like to think that I have done this backwards, and created a blog that is now looking to drive an entrepreneurial journey, and this is exactly what this is about.  I do not discredit the path of creating a business and then using a blog to support it, however, this is just not the path that I am travelling.