节目资讯
刊物:职场秘诀
日期:2009-03-09
难易度:High
关键字:networking, ramp up, referral
Advanced Studio Classroom is on the air.
What is net working and do you know how to do it right?
Hello, listeners, welcome to Advanced Studio Classroom.
This is Bill Quinn.
Today is March 9th and we’ve got a BUSINESS article here on page 18 of your
Advanced Studio Classroom magazine.
The Networking Balancing Act.
Now, I asked in the beginning: What is net working?
And more importantly, are you doing it right?
Do you know how to do it right?
Well, that’s a question we’re gonna try and answer and help you out with over
the next three days.
And I’ve got three panelists joining me to help us understand this concept that
is called networking in Western business and also in Eastern business in the...
world of Asia, things like that.
It might be called something different which we’ll get to a little bit later.
First is Naomi Biesheuvel.
Hi, Naomi.
Hi, Bill.
Welcome, everyone.
This is a good start to the month.
We’ve already had a couple of great articles.
And I’m excited to talk about this one because I think networking is important,
but a lot of us don’t really understand exactly what it is or exactly how to do
it.
Right.
We’ve had this word before as either Vocabulary Focus term or specialized term
in previous business articles.
We’ve talked a little bit about it as part of other articles.
This is the first article I can remember that specifically dealt with
networking.
It’s very important.
I don’t think people understand how important.
Right. Or I think a lot of people sort of say, ”Oh, there was this party, this
business party. It was great for networking. I got about 700 business cards.”
And you think, ”OK. Well.”.
So you have 700 business cards, but what are you going to do with them?
Put them in the drawer somewhere? Or is this really useful to you?
Right, that’s very good. Very good point.
Now also joining us, off to my right, is Brandon Bryant.
Hi, Brandon.
Hi, Bill.
It’s great to be here today.
And I also think that this is a useful topic that uh, people will be able to
use.
A very practical topic today.
How are your networking skills?
Well, you know, I need a lot of improvement, so this article has helped me as
well.
But I knew... I know relationships in general are important. The more
relationships that you have, then you keep in touch with those people, then
that’s very helpful for you, even in the business world.
OK. Well, you’re not alone as far as needing improvement.
Actually last night, even when I was reviewing and I thought, ”I need
improvement.”.
There’s things I have gotten a little bit lazy and sloppy on.
So it’s something that we all need to focus on a little more.
And also joining us, off to my left, is Winnie Shih.
Hello, Winnie.
Hi, Bill.
Hello, listeners.
Are you connected?
Uh, sometimes I am.
But most of the time, I’m not.
Ha...
Um, I think networking is a very, very important skill to have, but it’s
something, like Brandon, that I would like to learn more about.
I was just thinking of something.
You know, we think of networking as far as business people, men in suits,
briefcases with money.
Now we don’t think of teachers.
You were a teacher back in New York City.
Yes.
Is networking important for teachers?
Oh, it is very important.
Uh, let me... uh... just case in point, um, I went to a teacher conference once,
and being a newer teacher, I watched some of the more veteran teachers work.
And because they knew so many people, they were... able... they would find
resources so much easier.
They would uh, know different companies to talk to, who to talk to, who not to
talk to, and where to get what they need.
And so I mean it’s really powerful when you know the right people to talk to.
Right.
You know the people to talk to and you know about opportunities.
I think that’s something that surprised me in this article... was how many
different fields, um, can benefit from networking.
We sort of think of networking as like you said, Bill, this business person
thing.
But we... we’ll meet a doctor who networks.
Like we said, teachers can.
Even if you are, uh, you know, a full-time parent that... I mean I have lots of
friends who are raising their children.
That’s their job right now.
And for them, networking is so important because they need that... that support
and they need different connections to help, um, you know, with anything from
babysitting to uh, different kinds of supplies to...
Well, you never know.
Right.
A lot of people wonder: Why do things happen?
You know.
Why do certain people get a promotion or they get a job?
Or why do they... why do they get an opportunity that maybe... you know, why do
they... why does one person get an apartment over another maybe that they’ve
been waiting for?
So much of it is about networking.
I was gonna say, ”Bribery?”.
Sometimes.
Ha...
Yeah.
And I think this is one of the distinctions we have to be a little careful
about.
When I think about, you know, Asian networking, I always think of (Chinese).
But I feel like this is a little bit different from what’s expected in the West.
So if you’re someone who’s traveling or doing any kind of international
business, you’ll see that uh, the rules of (Chinese) maybe are helpful and
useful,
but that there are some differences that are important.
Right. OK. Very good.
OK, listeners, we’re on page 18.
Let’s have our first reading.
(Music).
The Networking Balancing Act.
In a tough job market, effective networking is key.
Samantha Fitzgerald, a Florida tax attorney and mother of two, wants to make the
right networking connections.
But two-and-a-half-hour business lunches consume too much of her day, and
evening programs cut into family time.
Fitzgerald says she has become selective in choosing groups.
”I give an organization a certain amount of time and if it doesn’t work, I move
on.”.
With job cuts expected to continue, more workers are ramping up their networking
efforts, trying to build relationships in these bleak times.
Of course, widening circles isn’t easy when our free time is already limited.
But the financial climate requires us to shake off our unease and ”schmooze”
effectively.
OK.
The Networking Balancing Act is the title.
Right there in our title is our first Vocabulary Focus term.
We’re saying networking.
Brandon, define it for us.
Well, networking, Bill, is simply the act of meeting and talking to a lot of
people who might be useful to know.
This is especially helpful in the workplace.
Mmhm.
OK.
Well, when we... workplace that can involve many different things.
It could involve uh, talking with people about different career opportunities
and... and we’ll find out here as far as getting referrals for business, trying
to generate business,
if you have a business of your own - maybe you’re in marketing or sales, things
like that.
Mmhm.
I think the next couple words in the title are important too:
balancing act.
I think of a circus, um, of acrobats, you know, walking the tightrope or...
Mmhm.
Um, the idea here is that it’s difficult to find the right balance of how to
network properly.
Um, you know, not to spend too much time with the wrong people, not to spend too
much energy, you know, just doing the wrong thing, but to really make it a
useful and effective tool for you.
Those two words are just as important in that title.
Balancing act as network.
And Naomi, you mentioned that uh, earlier in the program about a lot of people
will spend time going places, picking up 700 business cards, trying to meet a
thousand people.
That really does not do any good.
It’s not productive because uh, you’re not out there.
This is not uh, a contest to see how many people you can meet.
That’s not what this is about, OK?
So you want to make quality contacts, not quantity contacts,
because there’s lots of people running around just trying to meet a lot of
people and they’re... they’re forgotten three minutes later.
Mmhm.
That’s... So the important thing is the quality of your contacts, not the
quantity.
So what do we find there in a tough job market, Winnie?
Yes, in a tough job market, effective networking is key.
OK.
So this is uh... it’s a tough job market right now, isn’t it?
Yeah. newspapers are recently reporting that they’re... we’re going into a
recession.
OK.
Well, that’s... Actually we’ve been in recessionary period and it’s been
difficult.
Now you know, as far as a job market, when you find a job, one thing I’m
thinking of when people are looking for jobs:
What do they do, you know, if they’re looking for a job?
They would put out their resume to maybe many places, talk to friends, uh, maybe
look at the newspaper for classified ads.
OK. All right. Yeah.
That’s what I was looking for.
Look at the newspaper for classified ads.
Maybe where else would they look?
Well, when I’m thinking of when people are looking for jobs, it also has to do
with who they know sometimes.
So like Winnie said, the people look to their friends and so... and that’s sort
of dealing with networking,
because they... they think about, OK, what friend do I have in this area that
maybe could help me?
And so they contact that friend and that maybe could help them get a job or
something like that.
So they may look to just simply the people that they know to help them.
That actually will be more effective as far as your contacts than looking in the
want ads in the newspaper, even online.
Yeah, in my experience, looking for jobs, um, even though I have applied cold
for jobs and sent my resume out, um, I’ve usually been more successful when I do
have a connection,
when there is some sort of contact.
Right.
And, um,.
I think it’s... it’s tricky to use those contacts in a professional way but that
they’re very important.
Actually our deck says they’re key.
And so when something is key, it means it’s very important.
But you can think of it as the key to opening the door to something you want,
right?
Right.
So the effective networking is the key for you to get what you want.
OK.
Now what about this first person we meet here in that first paragraph, Winnie?
Samantha Fitzgerald, a Florida tax attorney and mother of two, wants to make the
right networking connections.
OK.
All right.
So she is a tax attorney and she’s very busy.
She’s got, uh, two children.
But um, you know, she still wants to connect with people that as far as probably
helping her business, so.
But there’s something getting in the way, Brandon.
Right.
She has these two-and-a-half-hour business lunches and they consume too much of
her day, and evening programs cut into family time.
So in other words, she has a lot going on.
She’s very busy, and so she’s trying to find time to do effective networking.
So she needs to kind of have the priorities set in line there so she can do
effective networking.
So we have two examples here of what kinds of activities people might engage in.
If they’re trying to network, one is a business lunch, um, now there’s uh...
two-and-a-half-hour is used as an adjective here to describe the business lunch.
In other words, if you go and meet with a bunch of people in your field, it can
take a lot of time and not everyone has that kind of time.
Right.
But the second one is an evening program.
So sometimes there are different kinds of clubs or organizations that would meet
on a weeknight.
That... that can also be difficult for some people.
OK.
So it’s a real question of balancing her time, OK? That’s part of her balancing
act - as we saw in the title, balancing their time because she’s got to do this
networking and raise her children, so.
But um, she has gotten better at this in the second paragraph, hasn’t she,
Winnie?
Yep, she says that she has become selective in choosing groups.
”I gave an organization a certain amount of time and if it doesn’t work, I move
on.”.
Selective here in this sentence means that she is choosing wisely or very
carefully.
So it’s not that she’s just going to any organization but she is choosing one
and then spending just a certain amount of time there.
Right.
OK. It’s very important to be selective.
Don’t just try and do everything.
Be specific about which group you want to participate in and know why.
But it can be hard to know until you try it - whether this group is really going
to be the right one for you.
So I like that next point that she makes basically where she says,
”I give it a try, I give it a certain amount of time. If I’m not seeing results
after, I don’t know, maybe three weeks, then I say, OK, I’m not gonna waste any
more time on this.”.
I... I love that sentence.
It actually reminds me I had a friend, uh, from college. A female friend told me
she... she gave men three days before she moved on.
And you know, she knew after three days if it worked or not.
Well...
This is the same.
I’m sure this woman wanted to get married, right?
She had a goal in mind, and so she wasn’t going to just waste time sitting
around with the... the guys that weren’t really gonna be a... a good match for
her.
Right, so.
And you can do the same with your networking group.
So date them for three weeks or three meetings and see if you wanna go steady.
But again, figure out...
(Background Noise).
It’s a nice analogy.
But figure out what your goal is, right?
If you’re dating, maybe your goal is to get married.
If you’re in business, what is your goal?
What are you looking for? What are you trying to improve?
If you know that, it’ll be easier to know whether a group is useful for you.
Right, specific goal.
Well, we find out in the next paragraph, marriage is not the goal but something
with our career is, right, Brandon?
Yes, it talks about there more job cuts are expected and more workers are
ramping up their networking efforts and they’re trying to build relationships in
these bleak or gloomy times.
And here the word ”ramping up” simply means to increase something.
And because people maybe are afraid that they’re going to lose their job or
something like that, they want to make sure that they have a lot of
relationships and a lot of contacts.
So in case maybe they do lose their job. If they have someone to contact, maybe
they can get another job.
OK, very good.
”Ramping up,” we’ll see a lot in business articles.
One quick uh, term I underlined right at the end of that sentence was ”bleak
times.”.
I just thought that was an interesting way of describing it.
Yeah, Brandon just said ”gloomy.”.
I like that too.
If something is bleak, I think of, you know, we always say, oh, there’s a light
at the end of the tunnel.
Right.
But if something is bleak, you can’t see that light.
You’re starting to feel kind of hopeless about the situation.
That’s pretty bad right now.
OK.
Well, but then of course, widening circles isn’t easy when our free time is
already limited.
And we learned Samantha Fitzgerald, her time is limited.
Now ”widening circles,” I underlined, Winnie.
Widening circles.
Uh, it’s talking about her gaining a larger uh, area of influence.
So she’s meeting more people and she’s trying to increase all the people and
relationships that she already has.
So it’s a social circle that we’re talking about here.
Mmhm.
And I do think that the grammar is a little tricky in this sentence.
But widening isn’t an adjective here. It is the verb.
The activity of trying to widen those circles, those communities is what she’s
really working on.
Right.
But we can’t be lazy in that last sentence of that paragraph, right, Brandon?
That’s right.
But the financial climate requires us to shake off our unease and schmooze
effectively.
(Background Noise).
Nice.
Very good.
There’s a lot in that sentence.
There it is a lot in that sentence.
What about ”shake off,” Brandon?
Well, that means kind of, you know, they’re uneasy about this networking, but
they need to... to come away from that.
It’s kind of like you take something off, you say, OK, I know I have this worry,
we’re just gonna lay it down, and you’re gonna do it anyway.
Kind of like a dog, the way a dog kind of shakes the water off.
That’s right.
Or even... even if you’re wearing a coat that’s very heavy and it feels like
this burden and then you just shake it off.
It’s like you let go of it.
But I like that they also call it a financial climate.
Yeah.
It’s like the weather of the financial world is not very good right now.
Right.
The situation.
And then we see ”unease.”.
That would be our discomfort.
And uh, so we have to shake off the unease and schmooze effectively. I love the
way Brandon said it.
Now I’m gonna have Winnie tell us what it is.
Schmooze is a verb, uh, which also means to talk agreeably with someone often to
gain personal advantage.
I think it’s another way of saying you know how to talk.
Sometimes you meet someone and they know just how to phrase their words the
right way to get what they want.
Right.
Now it’s so funny, I remember being introduced to this term many, many years ago
right in the beginning of my career.
And I always thought of schmooze, I thought of like a car salesman coming up
and... you know.
Something that... that was really obvious, obviously bad and... and... and...
and fake.
But actually schmoozing is done very well and very smoothly.
I think it can have negative connotations, this word.
If someone’s such a schmoozer, then you get the idea of that car salesman kind
of idea.
Right.
Not too positive.
But it can also be a very good term to, again, like Winnie said, speaking in a
way that will get you what you want.
There’s a way of doing it where you can just... you can actually be sincere and
actually care about your conversation, so.
You don’t have to be, you know, just all sales and everything where it’s obvious
and then people will have a reaction to that.
OK. Let’s make somecontacts.