Savvy Business Networkers “Get It”
According to Barbra Streisand, “People who need people…are the luckiest people in the world.” This is not a new story – or song. Since the dawn of time, people have needed people to survive.
The creation of community for support, sharing of resources and information, socialization and camaraderie that coming together can bring, has been recognized as a human need since our ancestors began to inhabit our planet.
So, networking is not a new phenomenon. Apparently, it is a Neanderthal survival skill!
The practices and actions of networking are geared toward helping others and allowing them to assist you.
Networking is a process and method for developing connections for the purpose of providing mutual assistance.
I am sure you’ve heard of “barn raisings”. Networking is the ‘barn raising’ of today.
My maternal grandparents owned a dairy farm in Vermont. When my mother was about 14, their family home burned to the ground in a matter of minutes on a very cold winter evening. Escaping with the clothes on their backs and little else, the 6 children lived with neighbors until the following summer. My grandparents lived in the barn and tended the animals to keep their farm running.
In the spring, all the neighbors got together and rebuilt the house that I knew as my grandparents’ homestead; it was an amazing house.
This coming together of neighbors to rebuild and reconnect a family is a prime example of what networking is all about.
In that community, neighbors didn’t turn their backs or say, “that’s not my problem”. Everyone in that community cared about the well -being of the others. Their very survival depended on their well- developed network. There were no phones but they knew how to connect!
Isn’t that what networking is all about?- Making Connections and offering to help when you see that help is needed.
In business it is the same thing! It’s about helping each other, working with other local business owners, focusing attention on “shopping local”.
This is not just a nice slogan.
It is a call to action, a call for attention to our purchasing habits.
Do you support your local businesses first? Do other local businesses support your business?
This is the real networking.
The support of each others’ businesses is our responsibility to our local business community. If we don’t shop local, our community of businesses will suffer. If businesses aren’t thriving, then the local community as a whole isn’t healthy either.
As local business owners, we need to reconnect with the ‘barn raising’ spirit in each of us by reaching out to all local businesses to “shopping local”. Networking with the attitude of giving is the networking “get it”!
I would love to hear how you support your local businesses and how as a community of local business owners you work together in support of each others’ businesses. If you believe “Shopping Local” would benefit other business owners, please share these thoughts and share this blog post with your friends and colleagues.