MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 2 | 75
Neil, a 1000 people raised their hands. Eve-
rybody in the audience said, 'yeh that’s why
I am here, it’s a networking event. That’s
why I am here, I want to sell.' I said, 'great
thanks.
Second question, raise your hand. If you are
here hoping to, you know maybe just possi-
bly buy something', no one raised their
hand. Not one single person. This is what I
call the networking disconnect, people show
up at networking events, everybody wants
to sell, but nobody is there to buy. And that’s
why people go to networking events, and
they walk out wanting to get a shower. Be-
cause they just feel so shmarmy, slimy. It’s
like 'oh god, all the people did was like try to
sell to me.' So that to me is a great example
of networking gone wrong.
Networking is more about farming, than it is
about hunting. It is about cultivating rela-
tionships with other business professionals.
It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, it’s a way to
build a solid foundation for a long-term suc-
cessful business. So, let me give you one
technique that I think is critical, it’s the foun-
dation of everything I teach, if you don't get
this right, nothing else matters with your
networking efforts. I call it the VCP Process.
Visibility, Credibility, Profitability.
You have to first be visible in the community,
people have to know who you are, and what
you do. Then and only then can you move to
credibility, where people know who you are,
what you do, and they know you are good atit. And that’s the one that takes a long time.
It takes time to get to get to credibility. Only
when you are at credibility, can you get to
the point to profitability where people know
who you are, they know what you do, they
know you are good at it and they are willing
to pass business to you on long-term recip-
rocal basis. That’s where you get the profita-
bility.
What people try to do, is they try to jump
over visibility, jump over credibility, get right
to profitability. 'Hi Neil, my name's Ivan, let’s
do business.' Or maybe, 'here's three copies
of my card, maybe if you meet somebody
who could use my services, you will refer
me.' And if you don't even know me, you are
trying to jump over visibility, you are trying
to jump over credibility and get right to
profitability.
I wrote a book called 'Business, networking
and sex. Not what you think.' That’s the sub-
title, not what you think is about the differ-
ence between men and women and how
they network. And we call that process,
jumping over visibility and credibility and
getting right to profitability, we call that
premature solicitation. Which you don't
want to say fast three times, it will get you in
trouble. But that’s where it’s done wrong, so
if you want to network effectively, it’s all
about relationships, everyone. It’s all about
building relationships.
Neil: Life is made of constant change wheth-
er you like it or not- The Only Constant is