I am reclined in my Adirondack chair on the beach of my lake house with a cold beer in my hand and my wife an arm’s reach away. I can hear my kids zoom around the property on their dirtbikes. The sound of crickets chirping fills the air as the sky fades from blue to red and the sun slowly sinks below the horizon. Tomorrow consists of chatting with customers for eight hours and then coming home to my wife and kids. This is how I picture success—to me, being successful means enjoying my job and having enough time and money on the side to travel the world and continue my adrenaline- and action-filled life with my family. To other people, success holds a completely different meaning. Success is personal and is individually …show more content…
Networking is merely establishing a relationship with people. The people in your network are individuals with whom you have a symbiotic relationship—you are able to rely on them to help you out and they are able to rely on you to assist them with career or professional support. Contacts are important because it is often the people that you are close with that offer you jobs or suggest you to other companies who are looking to hire people.
Dustin Inge, an alumnus of Virginia Tech, provided me with three important tips to remember when networking: talk to people, put yourself in other people’s shoes, and don’t be worried. The first is simple, just talk to people. Striking a conversation with strangers may seem intimidating, but it really isn’t so bad once you get the conversation going. The first step in establishing a relationship is initiating, so in order to acquire social capital, talking is essential. Talking also allows you to learn about the other person and Put yourself in other people’s shoes means to think about how the other person perceives you and approach them and talk to them based off of the background that they have of you. Don’t mass produce a sales pitch to people, but rather talk to them as an individual. If the individual knows you, then the conversation can be a little more personal than if it was someone that you just met. The third tip, “don’t be worried” simply means have confidence in what you do and what you say. If you believe in what you are saying, then the other person will have the perception that you are knowledgeable and will likely think the same