An old man on the point of death summoned his sons around him to give them some parting advice. He ordered his servants to bring in a bundle of sticks, and said to his eldest son: "Break it." The son strained and strained, but with all his efforts was unable to break the bundle. The other sons also tried, but none of them was successful. "Untie the bundle," said the father, "and each of you take a stick." When they had done so, he called out to them: "Now, break," and each stick was easily broken. "You see my meaning," said their father.

Union gives strength.

We are stronger together.

We are better together.

It's easy to think we don't need other people. It's easy to think, "I'm self-sufficient. If I focus on being the best I can be, I won't need other people's help." Some people don't want to ask for help. They believe it makes them appear weak.

But as the fable tells us, we are stronger together. Uniting your strengths with another person's strengths makes both of you stronger.

Right now, there is a group of people with whom you have professional relationships. You know them and they know you. You help them and they help you. But you can't possibly meet every person who may help you in your life and career. There isn't enough time.

That's the value of a vibrant professional network. It allows you to leverage other people's professional relationships to connect you with opportunities you otherwise might not have.

Every time you build a strong professional relationship with someone, you add his or her network to your network. You make her connections your connections and vice versa. As your network grows in the number of professional relationships, it gets stronger.

What is "networking?"

When I start a new group coaching program, I ask everyone to tell me the first thing that pops into their minds when I say the word "networking." Usually, they tell me something like this:

Meeting new people at networking events
Making professional connections
Exchanging business cards
Finding a job
It’s awkward.
It’s salesy and sleazy

To be honest, I don't think most people like to network, but they've been told it's important. Why is it important? How does it make you stronger as it says in the fable?

Let's start with my definition of networking: Creating professional relationships with people you know and trust for mutual benefit.

Notice, I called them "professional relationships?" I'm going to use terms like "network" and "connections" in this book. That may sound cold or sterile, but that fact is, I'm not going to talk about friendships. I'm not talking about people you want to spend your free time and weekends with. Professional relationships are people you want to work with and do business with.

Also, my view of networking is about mutual benefit. This isn't about What's In It For Me (WIIFM). It's true I advocate networking to advance your career or business, but not at another's expense. Each professional relationship should be viewed as a two-way street. You should pursue networking with the mindset of what you can give to other people.

When I talk about networking, I talk about it in terms of opportunities. What do I mean by finding opportunities?

Everyone has different goals. Everyone is trying to do something different. Some people are trying to establish themselves in a career. Some people are trying to build their own businesses. Everyone is looking for opportunities.

No matter what opportunities you are looking for, networking helps you find them. At the same time networking is not going to turn those opportunities into a job or a new client. That's up to you and your skills and experience. You can't just meet a person and expect them to give you whatever you ask for. You need to show up. Networking helps you figure out where to show up. Networking gets you the audience. It's still up to you to dance.

There are a few more things I believe about networking:

It's a skill that requires intentional practice.
It doesn't come naturally to people, especially introverts.
There's a lot of inaccurate information in the world about networking.
Most people have the wrong impression of what networking is and that's the reason they don’t do it.
Learning how to network will improve your life, no matter what you do for a living.

You can see I believe networking is an activity you should pursue intentionally. But the question is: how will networking help you?

Here are my top three answers to that question:

Knowledge and Authority
Talent
Career Insurance

Knowledge and Authority

You can acquire knowledge in different ways. You can read about it, you can go to class to learn about it, or you can get it from first-hand experience.

Another very efficient way is to get it is from other people’s experiences. You can get it from people who have already solved the problems you're trying to solve. We like to say "Don’t re-create the wheel." The idea is to find out who has solved the problem and ask for advice. However, most people aren’t sitting around waiting for you to come to ask them for advice. Even if they were, would you know who to ask?

Networking allows you to find people who already have the answers or at least the experience to help you gain the knowledge you need to do your job better or to solve a problem you're working on. If you have a job and are struggling with a job-related problem, your professional network can help you find someone who has already solved that problem. But if the person you need to talk to is already connected to you, they're less likely to help you. Having a professional connection with them will make them more likely to share their knowledge with you.

Let’s look at this from the other side. The side where you are the one with the knowledge, or in this case, the authority on a subject. Even if you aren’t looking for a new job, you want to make yourself someone people value. But you can’t stand on the corner and shout your advice to people.

In order for people to trust your knowledge and advice, they have to get to know you. You want to build professional relationships so that you become the go-to resource in your area of expertise. You already have a lot of experiences that are valuable to other people. You have perspectives people will want and need.

But if no one knows what you do or what experiences you have how will they know what you know? Again, creating connections in your professional network will help you find people who want to tap into your knowledge.

What’s your expertise? What special knowledge do you have that you could share?

When people already know you and what you can do, they invite you to work with them. You get opportunities you wouldn’t get if you simply keep your perspective to yourself.

I have had the opportunity to give guest lectures at a university about the topic of professional networking.

I got the opportunity through my professional network. The professor and I met and established a professional relationship. I met her before she started teaching at that university. We get together periodically and talk about what we are working on, and I was able to share my ideas on networking.

Because she knows me and knows what I talk about, she asked me to come to talk to her business communications class. This worked well for her because she didn’t have to spend hours or days finding someone to talk to her class about networking. She knew me and the topic I had knowledge or authority on and she invited me to present to her class. This worked well for me because it gave me an opportunity to share what I know with her students and the other faculty.

Who knows where this opportunity will lead, but it all started because I was able to share what I do with one of my networking connections who came to know and trust me as an authority on this topic.

Talent

Besides figuring out who has the answers to questions, you can also identify people who would be talented individuals you'd like to work with on your team or in your business.

I was connected with an HR leader in Denver and during a morning coffee meeting, she said to me, “Our company has a talent imperative." I hadn't heard this statement before so I pressed her for more information. She said, "All executives are asked to network and meet talent in the area that could someday join our company. I’m not recruiting you today, but someday, I might have a role you would be great for and I want to be connected with you already.”

If you lead a team or are part of a team in your organization, you can begin meeting people who you might want to hire someday. When you are able to recommend top talent to your organization because you already have a professional relationship with them, your value in the organization is going to skyrocket.

This is one of the reasons I give to people who tell me they don’t network because they aren’t looking for a job. Having the network now will allow you to find knowledge and talent to make your current company even more effective.

In order to locate this talent and persuade them to join your team, you are going to need to get to know them first. You are going to need to establish a professional relationship with them. While you may present a talented person with an employment opportunity, this person needs to know you are legitimate and a person he or she would want to work for.

By networking with talent before you have an opportunity for them, you'll be able to quickly contact them and start the process of bringing them into your organization.

Career Insurance

Bad things happen. Cars crash. Houses burn. People get sick. Sometimes they die. All of these things have financial consequences. In most cases, people don't have enough cash in the bank to pay for these consequences. But everyone knows these things happen. To protect themselves, people buy insurance.

Insurance exists to reimburse you if something bad happens to you. If you die early, your life insurance policy helps your family financially. If you get hurt and can't work, disability insurance helps with your bills until you get better. If your house burns down, your homeowner's policy gets you a new house. If your car is in an accident, auto insurance pays to have it repaired.

There are other bad things that happen. Losing your job is a bad thing. In the U.S., when you have a job, your employer pays for unemployment insurance. If you lose your job involuntarily, you can qualify for unemployment payments.

These payments are intended to replace half of your income while you look for another job, but that's not enough for people to maintain their current standard of living. For most people, their job is their single biggest, and likely only, source of income. Income that pays for housing, food, and everything else. Like the car, house, or life insurance examples, most people don't have enough cash in the bank to pay the bills if they don't have a job.

Yet, there is no insurance policy you can buy that would replace all of your income if you lost your job. But there is a way to insure your income in the event you lose your job. You can't get this policy from a broker or insurance company. You have to build this policy yourself.

Your professional network is your career insurance policy.

It's the quickest way to find your next job.

How prepared are you for the sudden loss of your biggest source of income?

Do you have a professional network that could quickly notify you of potential career opportunities?
Would your network know what you are currently working on, what you are really good at, and how you could solve another employer's problems?
Would your professional network be willing to refer you to their connections or would they think to themselves, "I haven't heard from this person in years, and he's suddenly contacting me because he needs a job?"

How do you create a career insurance policy?

Build a vibrant professional network.

Let's go back to the bundle of sticks in the fable.

It's easy to imagine all of the sticks are the same size in length and width. But if you went outside and picked up a bundle of sticks, some would be longer and some would be shorter. Some would be thick and others would be thin. Some would be green having just fallen off of the tree and some would be brittle having been on the ground for a while.

As you build your professional network, you will be connecting with different types of people.

Some people will have a large network of professional connections and others will be starting out with their networking efforts. Some people will have professional status as the leader of an organization and others will be starting their first job. As individuals, they may be strong or weak sticks.

No matter what the individual people look like, when you tie them together, they will be difficult, if not impossible, to break.

If you had only one connection, you would still be stronger together than separately. If you added one more connection, then the three of you would be stronger than two of you.

Each relationship you add, adds strength.

Another aspect of this metaphor is you need to continue to stay close to your connections. You don't need to talk to your relationships every day, but you need to keep them close to you - metaphorically speaking. If you make a connection once and then don't talk to them for a while, they aren't part of your bundle. Just like a weak tie around the bundles of sticks would allow the sticks to fall apart, your network needs to stay connected over time in order to maintain its strength.

Networking isn't just about connecting once. It's about building relationships. It is about building professional bonds. These bonds form over time through consistent connection.

Now that you are ready to start building your "bundle" of professional connections, what's next?

Answer these questions: What is one thing you would like to learn about? Who do you know that already knows this?
Do you have a business or do you work at a company? Who from your career or life would you like to add to your dream team? Who are people you could talk to about joining you?
If you lost your job today, other than friends and family, who would be the first person you would call to ask for advice.

The purpose of these questions is to start thinking about who you would like to connect with.

You may be able to come up with anywhere from one to one hundred people to connect with today. For now, I'd encourage you to simply come up with one person.

As you think about building your vibrant professional network, remember the fable about the bundle of sticks, and remember this saying:

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

This is post is one of the chapters in a book I am writing called, “Aesop’s Guide to Networking for Introverts. How to Build Your Professional Network Without Going To Events, Cold-Calling, or Sending Spammy Emails.”

I’m posting the chapters as I go and would love to get feedback or suggestions. Please leave your comments to tell me what I could do better!