The Clever Connector: The Easiest Way to Become Powerful, Regardless of Your Situation. The Underdog's Guide to Networking With Billionaires, Celebrities, and Executives by Ali Scarlett

Author:Ali Scarlett [Scarlett, Ali]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, General, Self-Help, Communication, Business Networking
ISBN: 9780578714141
Google: 89GXzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Ali Scarlett
Published: 2020-09-29T23:00:00+00:00

Step Four

Networking Strategies to Connect

If you’ve gotten this far without giving up, you’re amazing and I am impressed with your progress. It’s not uncommon to surrender in the face of a daunting mission, so congratulations on continuing your work through all the action steps.

The last chapter was all about setting you up with the best (and most effective) networking rules and principles so you can be most effective when you implement the strategies within this chapter.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.” - African Proverb

Now we get into the good stuff: strategies to connect with others so you can go farther than you ever thought possible!

1.) Know Your Approach

The first step is to know your approach. As previously explained, for you to have greater success in networking, you need to be perceived as high-power.

For the most part, you can behave one of two ways while networking: dominant or submissive. Both have their perks, but in most networking situations you want to be dominant. Why? Dominance is power measured in terms of strength. People who are high-power want to network with other people who are high-power. That way, there is more opportunity for collaboration where both parties are giving and there is less room for the chance of a “one is giving and one is taking” relationship.

High-power individuals seek out other high-power individuals to network with, in order to make sure the relationship they would be creating is in balance. One way to advertise that you’re high-power is by behaving dominantly.

The problem with behaving submissively while networking is that “submissive body language and behavior communicates that we accept the dominance of someone else over the environment and/or over ourselves. In a nutshell, submissive behavior relinquishes control and gives power to others.”[1]

In other words, if you behave too submissively while interacting with professionals, they’ll assume that they have more power than you. That leads to them perceiving you as high-warmth, low-power according to the stereotype content model. That’s not the bracket you want to be in.

So, while you should be behaving dominantly while networking, different people display and advertise their power (strength) in different ways, so there are many styles of dominance for you to choose from:

Styles of Dominance[2]12:

1. Physical Dominance: The Meatheads

- “Meatheads exert dominance through the (unstated) threat of physical violence. It’s not uncommon to find executives and CEOs that present a layer of physical intimidation.” However, this style is low-warmth and ineffective for networking.

2. Holier Than Thou: The Smart Alec

- “Smart alecs leverage knowledge to portray authority. Smart alecs carry themselves with a ‘better than you’ attitude. They act aloof and use big words, slow speech rate, personal distance and quotes to show off how smart they are. Their strategy for social power is elitism and superiority.” I’m sure you can see how smart alecs leverage the stereotype content model by presenting themselves as high-power this way. “Since we respect intellectuals in our society, Smart Alecs also have easier access to the elites of power,” hence the elitism and superiority behavior.

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