Networking on the Margin
By BNI & Referral Institute - Feb 01 , 2012
Living on the margin, in any capacity, is not healthy.
If you make $50,00 a year and you live to your means and spend $50,000, you have no room for error. In other words, when those inevitable breakdowns happen, you get stressed and have to scramble for the extra money. Life gets a little bit tougher. Don’t the dishwasher and car transmission fail at the worst possible times? Typically, as we make more money, we spend more money because isn’t that the reason we strived to make more money in the first place? We’re vulnerable to the consumer mindset, and the advertising mavens know this: they prey upon our weakness.
Networking on the margin is as stressful and detrimental as living on the financial margin. You go out to events, shake hands, pass out cards, chitchat and move on to the next event. Once you go to one mixer, sure enough you’ll be invited to others and as you gain momentum, you’ll see your weekdays and nights filling up with events.
At first you feel great: Most of us are social animals who like to be included in groups because it strengthens our sense of belonging and self esteem. Soon, however, you’re likely to find yourself with no down time to follow up and strengthen those valuable relationships that you’d made so much effort to initiate in the first place.
The margin allows for those spontaneous meetings that often come up because someone wants to review an idea or project with you. How can you have time for those unplanned events when you’re rushing around from one group meeting to the next? If you try to squeeze everything in, you end up shortchanging your business and family because you won’t have enough energy to juggle everything. Networking and allowing yourself time to follow up, make calls and spontaneously set up meetings with key contacts is only possible when you have allotted scheduled gaps of time to be free.
The margin in your life, whether it’s financial, networking, relationships or whatever you invest your energy into is that gap of resources that you don’t allocate, that you leave open and free to allow for the unplanned events which happen in life.
My feeling is that special things happen in the “margin” because since circumstances and our energies are always shifting, it allows you to accommodate for those events in a stress-free fashion.
Living below your means, only keeping a handful of close relationships near you, networking within your capacity to follow up and build strong relationships makes life much more manageable and productive.
Lester M. Salvatierra has 15 years experience as a licensed Finance Specialist with First U.S. Finance (http://www.FirstUSFinance.com). He helps small to mid-size companies lease or finance a wide variety of equipment and special projects nationwide. He is passionate about referral marketing and is a business networking coach in Ventura County, California. Sign up now to follow his business networking blog at: http://theRogueNetworker.com
