Taken from Alan’s talk at the M3 Job Club, we talk about how giving can help you in the long run and the importance of Reciprocity.
Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present.
and reciprocity is the idea that you put something out there and something comes back to you. And what you’re putting out there brings things back. And when you’re networking, you’re going around, you’re talking to people, you’re engaging with people, you’re smiling at people, you’re putting out energy, you’re, you’re you’re giving out things, when you’re going out networking, you’re constantly giving things. And it’s this act of giving and networking, that brings things back. And that giving might just be a phone call to them. It might be just listening to them, it might be chatting to them, it might be smiling in them, it’s something you are giving. And the thing about reciprocity in networking is the more you give the energy, the focus the attention, the more you give, the more that comes back to you. And when you do need to ask someone for help. It’s really easy to go and ask them for help. Because you’ve given, so networking for me, is about giving or finding out what other people are interested in. But one of the things that I like to do about networking, is I’m always asking people, so what are you looking for? What are you after? What are you working on? What are you interested in? If I can find out what people are interested in, and I can help them by making introductions. I’m giving them something to them. My last closing thought for you is this things that you do will build a momentum. The more you give, the more phone calls you make, the more Facebook you do, the more energy you put out there, it builds momentum. If you’ve not been doing it for a while, it will take some energy and effort from you to build the momentum up. It doesn’t happen quickly. Networking is not a quick solution. It’s a long term solution. It’s a long term solution. So you need to put the energy into it for that momentum to build. But once it builds up, it is incredible where the connections come from, but you’ve got to put the energy into it. And sometimes, if you’ve had a job for a while that you’ve been focused on the job, you’ve forgotten to do the networking bit and then you get the shock of coming out to try and rebuild that network to find the next bit. But if you put the energy in, it’s got to start with you. The energy doesn’t start anywhere else. It’s got to start with you