It’s happened again. I’ve taken a plunge into a (semi-)new town, bringing along all my belongings, complete with emotional baggage and partner, and here I sit in my bedroom, where I’ve remained (more-or-less) for the last week. Due to the crushing fear that I will develop bedsores, I plan to go out and — dare I say it — meet new people on Monday. That seems ample time to prepare myself for the inevitable dirty looks and overwhelming pressure to actually speak with somebody I don’t know.
It’s not supposed to be this way: a professional, budding, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young man being completely paralyzed by fear of rejection. Especially not somebody who so frequently talks about marketing and networking. But we all have our little secrets, hypocrisies, idiosyncrasies… Whatever you’d like to call them.
Thus, I write today not a how-to article on networking. Clearly, I’m bad at that. Rather, I present the “why” behind networking. The reason to get yourself and your business out there.
Have some whiskey, honey. Makes you feel better!
You see, we, as people, are urged by instinct to find a “place” (group) to belong. We become sick when we live in a life of anomie, which many sociologists use to explain the higher suicide rates in larger, anonymous towns than in small ones where everybody knows everybody.
It’s healthy, and at times downright mandatory, to put oneself on the forefront, meeting new people and making friends and comrades. Without doing so, many people go insane (there is truth in the cliche mad hermit in every wilderness book).
Oh, look, a butterfly!
Without others around us, we tend to lose focus. We develop poor manners, fleeting thoughts, and laziness. We need pressure in the form of several sets of eyes to actually do things. This is why bloggers burn out so quickly in the early stages: without constant readership to moan when they step out of line, they quickly give in, calling it quits, because there is no reason to go on.
Why don’t you call me a little more often?
It’s no secret: sometimes, we can’t deal with things on our own, and, just like the health aspects to meeting new people, it is necessary at times to have a shoulder to cry on. The only way to find these shoulders is to network.
And the final reason to network?
Hey, um… can I, like, borrow this?
Whether you want to build your business’s clientele, have a co-signer on your loan, bum a cigarette, or otherwise, the only way to accomplish any of these things is to have somebody to help you. You must get out there.
Now, I don’t think I’m at all qualified to preach about the “how” behind marketing, but I most certainly am qualified to talk about the why. After all, I’ve taken a freshman-level college sociology class. That means I know it all about people, right?
…Right?
So, readers, what do you think? Why do you continuously put yourself out there are the risk of failure and rejection?
