In this episode, we discuss the importance of building up your network before you actually need to use it.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe where I combine financial planning with self-development coaching for Latino professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how you need to constantly be networking as an individual. There is a saying out there that says you need to dig your well before you’re thirsty. And if you think about this saying, it’s very true. The worst time to start digging a well is when you’re thirsty. Before if you thirsty and you’re digging a well, you’re going to exert a lot of effort and you might die of dehydration before you get water again.
The same concept applies to us and networking. You don’t want to be fired or laid off from a job and find out you don’t have anybody to reach out to help you find another job. If you haven’t reached out to someone in ten years and you finally reach out to them to ask for a job lead, then it’s going make it seem like you’re a taker in the relationship.
Where you only reach out to people once you need something. If you do this everything you find yourself in a hole, then it is going to cause you trouble. So you need to have a system in place where you reach out to folks on a daily basis.
Jordan Harbinger of the podcast, The Jordan Harbinger Show has this free course you can take called six-minute networking and that is what I used to help me stay in touch with people. You just find different people you haven’t communicated in a while and you just check-in with them.
So for parameters, he says you should reach out to your family every 21 days. You should reach out to your close friends every month, and you should reach out to your weaker tie folks every three months. So you have to understand that a lot of your opportunities are going to come from those weaker ties in your network because they have information that you really don’t hear about.
So when you reach out to these folks and you find out what they have been up to, you can offer some help if you can do so. Also, you can share what you’ve been up to as well so they can have an opportunity to help you as well. You’re probably not going to get something out of every interaction but it is a nice gesture to check-in how people are doing and it doesn’t require you to talk to someone for two hours every day. Just check-in, say what’s up, and you can leave it at that.
You have to do this every day and don’t worry if some people don’t respond back to you. There are some days I don’t get any responses back but at the end of my check-in, I say, no rush response required, hope to hear from you soon. So there is no pressure to reply back right away and sometimes I get a response six months later saying they are sorry for not replying. And I just say it’s all good and we continue the conversation.
You don’t know when you’ll need a favor to be helped out and so you need to create a system that allows you to get help when you need it. Plus if you tell enough people what you want, eventually you’ll find someone that can help you out.
This quote applies to other parts of your life as well. With your health, your finances, your work, and just about everything, you need to dig the well before you get thirsty. It sucks to be struggling when you’re thirsty. This is going to cause a lot of stress that will take a toll on your physical and mental health. One of the things that I wished the Marines taught me was the value of having a network. In the Marines, you kind of just get promoted automatically if you do things you’re supposed to do like maintain your weight, be a good shooter, be a good swimmer, be in good physical shape, know your job, and take the classes you need to take to get promoted. There is a clear road map on what needs to be done while you’re in the Marines.
Once you get to the civilian world, then that’s when things become a lot more chaotic. I remember moving from Oregon to DC and I really didn’t have a network to rely on when I first got there. All the people I knew where basically in the Marines and I was starting from scratch. It was hard finding a job because the recession was still in effect in 2012 where unemployment was around 10%. So I would apply for job after job, and I really didn’t get anywhere. I had to take a job as a valet to in the short run to earn some income. It was a cool job because I did valet at the Hilton in DC and you got to drive some pretty cool cars but the pay was not what I wanted.
You have to realize that 70 to 80 percent of jobs are filled before they ever get posted online. So if you know the right people, they can ensure that you get the job you want. I think it was because of that situation where I knew I couldn’t take easy ever again with me building my network. It sucks to go through that and I’m going to do whatever is necessary to prevent that type of situation ever again. If it does happen though, I’ll be more prepared for it mentally and emotionally.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode, to summarize it, you need to dig the well before you are thirsty when it comes to your networking. I recently had a coaching client that I told him he should be doing more networking and a week after started doing this, his company started to downsize. He told this to a friend that is in his industry and was then told about this job opening in his firm. He didn’t take it but he wouldn’t have had that information if he didn’t work on digging his well. So if you want to have more opportunities in life and not to die of dehydration, start working on building up your network.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
