Networking - It Isn't About You

This link was shared on one of the writer's loops to which I belong. It's an interview with Stephanie Palmer - a consultant to creative types who are looking for help in getting their work in front of the right people. Of course, she's written a book Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over Any Audience.

I find it interesting that some of the points she makes are the same strategies used by folks who are good at business development (in the professional services world thats a more PC term for sales).

Stephanie talks about building relationships. Real networking isn't about meeting people that can help you - it's about looking for ways you can help the people you meet. The end result is people that are willing to help you. It's about building genuine relationships where you see the person as a person not a stepping stone on the way to achieving your own goals.

How many of us miss this key point in our quest to meet the folks that will help us achieve our goals?

And how many of us eschew selling ourselves because we think that's our agent's job? True, it is your agent's job to pitch you work, but you still have to sell yourself to readers and editors and reviewers and so on and so on.

I can't tell you how many times in the last year I've heard (or read) authors with scorn in their voice talk about how they shouldn't have to market their work. Marketing's a dirty word it appears. But as a wise old friend of mine once said, sometimes you have to blow your own horn because nobody else is going to blow it for you.