I know what many of you are thinking. This general business advice has been overly saturated in every single college course and job fair. Well, frankly, I am as sick of it as many of you are. However, I firmly believe none of us actually learn a lesson until we physically see the action facilitated. To set the record straight, I am not trying to refute the common conception that “you don’t have to see to believe.” Simply put, I realized how beneficial networking could be, but never actually pursued anything with it. I don’t consider myself a business mogul or some entrepreneurial mastermind, but I do possess drive and dedication. With that being said, I don’t believe anyone can achieve their self-started aspirations without possessing at least one of these two characteristics.

Upon moving to California, it was safe to say that I had no prospective business networking base. Moving 3,000 miles away from a state that I considered more my home than anywhere, I quickly realized the gravity of the obstacles I was about to face. I do not want to speak in particular about the entertainment industry (even though this industry is as break-neck as it gets), but for all areas of business. Behind having a service, product, or something you can offer, one has to possess the drive to sell it. What do I mean by this? The whole point of networking is to meet anyone and everyone who could offer their services to you in the future (or now). If you don’t have a particular service or consultation you can sell, but possess every bit of energy to market yourself, you still have a better chance of gaining a prospective partner than if you had a product and no visible eagerness and tenacity. With that being said, there are two things that I try to live by when I am networking.

The first thing is that I set achievable goals for myself to accomplish during the course of the week. It grows increasingly more evident each time that most people who want to “network” only do it out of gaining a sense of “accomplishment.” To be realistic, most times any entrepreneur goes out to professionally mingle, they aren’t going to meet the filthy rich mogul who will handsomely invest 15 million into your idea or business. While that unlikely encounter could happen anytime, it makes more sense to set an achievable goal to actively meet entrepreneurs. In the same sentence, one most approach every “event” that the encounter won’t lead to an immediate business opportunity. For me, I like to set up a goal that I exchange/receive information with at least three people a week. Why three people? Why not 5? Sure. Go for fucking 20 if you think that’s an achievable goal for you. Personally, setting a goal of meeting 3 people allows me to gain short term satisfaction as well as long term viability (3 contacts a week = around 12 contacts a month). I am no professional at networking (not by a long shot), but speaking from the outside-in, it is important to market the person you are. Nothing else, think of this as practice. This leads me to my second point.

Eagerness and tenacity are the most necessary characteristics to have when networking. As I mentioned earlier, in a worst case scenario, it is better to have eagerness and tenacity with no visible craft than having no eagerness and a visible craft to market. For instance, an entrepreneur who is heavily involved in the film industry meets an engineer with visible confidence and eagerness, could ultimately create a business venture. Even though both of their trades are completely different, one or the other may admire the confidence of the other and ultimately pursue something in the future. Think of it this way, if you expand towards a concrete business model, now you have an engineer to help you with aspects that you don’t understand. Bottom line, even if you don’t believe in yourself, make others think that you do. It is easy to bullshit with someone about a topic they may not know about, but if you don’t confidently sell it, then there is a chance that they will smell blood in the water.

Furthermore is that you don’t have to like networking, but you DO have to do it. It is a necessary evil if you ever want to flourish in your future endeavors as an entrepreneur or simply, as an active human being.

Annoucements: Expect more reviews (at least one a week), I want to get another podcast up as well for SUR. I have a lot of news that needs to be heard.

Best,

Jack