The N Factor: Effecient Networking

As many of you know, when I started NY:MIEG almost 2 years ago I had 3 criteria for success:

• Meet New and Interesting People
• Learn Someting New
• Have a Good Time
  

I have been fortunate, since the beginning, to have meet interesting people who are specialists in the area of business networking and have provided me with valuable advice and I'd like to think this is part of the success of the group. Recently Adrie Reinders an entrepreneur and networking consultant with offices in The Netherlands and NYC connected with me an expressed interest in our group and hoefully join us early next year when his new book is published. In the meantime, here is some background about his current publication "The N Factor" as well as a link to ordering it on Amazon.

-Bill

Networking is arterial to business development. People do business with people. Trust is the foundation of consummation of a business relationship. Networking is the time-proven conduit to establishing the trust that leads to business deals.

Till now, networking has been mostly an art form. Common belief is that you are either born with networking skills or you are not. You are either gregarious or you are not.

For the first time, Adrie and Marion in The N Factor explode the myth of the little understood monolith of networking and break it down to a science. In a step-by-step fashion, the N-Factor leads its reader to the key ingredients of networking. It is an ordered walk-through of all the key constituents one needs to inculcate in their business development regime for effective networking. Whether it is events, seminars, peer-to-peer networking, individual meetings, inheritance of peer relationship capitals or even “chance” meetings, the N-Factor tells its reader how to optimize the relationship currency assimilated in any such event. For instance, it takes communications and provides a practitioner’s approach to uni and bidirectional communications in synchronous and asynchronous mode, making it easy for any reader to start inculcating it in his networking regime. For the more trivial of such instances, take the chance of seemingly “random” meetings. Adrie and Marion guide the reader to places such as airports, flights, professional clubs, even health clubs, where such “random” meetings may happen. The authors then present comprehensive guidelines for how to engage in the “random” meeting, from the introduction, to the fodder for conversation including business and world events, political changes, market activity, M&As of interest, and global market dynamics; effectively presenting a recipe for augmenting your relationship capital during what might otherwise be downtime. By the conclusion of the book, the N Factor has osmotically infused networking as a way of life onto its reader, which has the potential to bring significant valuation to one’s business goals. A failure to nurture this knowledge would show a philistine indifference to the innate talent and derivative achievements that an executive could harness.

The N Factor departs from the usual treatment of business development by other authors, who typically offer an academic treatise, with not as many pragmatic directions. One can understand why, as not many other authors compare to the real-life relationship capital that Adrie and Marion have assimilated in their decades of networking experience. By effectively engaging in it for long, the authors have developed a clairvoyance of what pragmatically goes into building a similar relationship capital, as opposed to theoretical concepts which do not have the noteworthy hit-ratios of success. The other works based on literature reviews often tend to be ephemeral in nature, and the discovery-du-jour approach can whipsaw readers between contradictory claims and leave them wondering without a clear compass.

The N Factor, on the other hand, presents a practitioner’s approach to the beautiful pragmatic basics of networking. The authors say that the intended audience is entrepreneurs and talented young executives. I would differ from the authors’ perspectives as any executive from a CEO to a young gun just starting out, could benefit from the treatise. We can all benefit from furthering our relationship capital. With the converging global economy, understanding how to network effectively in different “hot” geographies of the world is on the critical path to leveraging labor and resource arbitrage that the integrated global economy presents. The N Factor starts with the focus on global networking and ends with pragmatic networking directions for US, China, France, Japan, UK, India and The Netherlands. This unique global perspective is often missing from other texts on the topic, which tend to treat the networking principles as “one size fits all”. Adrie and Marion expose this inane misconception. In some countries, replying “This is interesting” to a business proposition may have you believe that they would like to explore next steps, while in actuality, post cultural transposition, it translates to they would want nothing to do with it.

The chapter on E-networking tools contributes to boiling down the networking art form to a scientific regime. Be it email, CRM tools, search engines or other collaboration tools, Adrie and Marion present a methodology for leveraging the tool for optimizing the networking returns. The authors magically take the chore out of networking and transform it to a natural inspiring lifestyle, which is healthy, enjoyable and pays back handsomely in dividends.

Every author of a book on business faces challenges on how to enliven the material, which can otherwise make the reading fairly dry. The authors’ solution for The N Factor includes a buzzing profusion of real-life anecdotes. The language is always clever, and often witty.

The N Factor is an excellent introduction to the beautiful basics of networking. I hope it is widely read. It could make the business community smarter.

TO ORDER THE E-FACTOR ON AMAZON.COM CLICK HERE