Networking 101 - Surround Yourself With Like Minded People

Networking 101 - Surround yourself with like minded people

By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd

Networking for me is also about building the right people around me.  Let me explain. 

Part of adding value, when I refer someone or add someone to my data base, is to have a selection of people who do not do what I do, but rather do what I don’t.  I need people who will do the things that are not my strengths.

Let’s explore this for a moment.  I am an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist and the fact of the matter is that I am very good at what I do – now that’s not a boast, it’s a fact.  I have the accolades (and the clients) to prove it.

One of the areas that I check when I am doing an assessment, is whether the client has got contracts in place and if so are they the correct contracts.  Now I am not a lawyer and I don’t profess to know too much about the law (other than it can get really confusing), so instead of that becoming a weakness (because I know that you have a problem, but I cannot solve it for you), I turn it into a strength (for me) and a value add (for both you and the specialist that I refer), by referring you to the correct lawyer for your problem. Notice I said the correct lawyer – not just a lawyer.  You see there are many different aspects to the law, so many lawyers choose to specialize.  The result is that I have a Contractual Lawyer, a Litigation Lawyer, a Trust Lawyer, a Labour Attorney and a Generalist Attorney. I also have a Tax Advocate and if pressed, I am sure I could find you a really mean Divorce Lawyer as well.

Just by knowing these people, I have increased my value and therefore the value to my Company.  I have provided a solution to a problem that my client had (notice had – the problem is now resolved), I have given work to a colleague who will now ‘remember’ me if anyone of their client’s needs the kind of help that I can give and I have increased and added to my ‘Circle of Influence’    How awesome is that?

So, although it appears that I work totally alone, I am actually a very small part of a very large team!  That’s not the end of the story either because, I tend to work with other individuals who are entrepreneurs and SMME’s, so I work with Specialists rather than generalists, which is what you usually find in the Corporate environment.  What does this actually mean though?  It means that you get assistance from people like me – people who are passionate about what it is that they do, rather than just people who work to put food on the table.

People who are determined to make a difference in your life and your business.  People who deliver what and when they say they will deliver. Now that for me is the biggest value add of them all!

Where do I get these people from, I hear you ask – well that’s simple to answer – from networking of course!
 
Nikki Viljoen is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist and she can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or https://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za