Managing Your Most Important Assest

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preston-mikeToday, the most important asset that a professional carries with them is their professional (and personal) relationships… In other words, their human network. People are no longer loyal to companies, they are loyal to people. Given the choice, a customer will usually follow their relationship manager to a new company. Your professional network of customers, resources, partners and influencers multiplies your personal value. Even those folks with exceptional specialized talent have to rely on some type of professional network (now more than ever) to be successful. As free agency, contract work, self employment, slimmed down corporations and entrepreneurialism grows, traditional employment insecurity will grow along with it.

The good news (or bad news depending on how you see it) is that the individual is now in control and maintenance of their number one asset, their human network, is the number one component for their continued success.
I recommend the following:
  • Do the activities that bring new blood into your network: attending networking functions, giving and soliciting introductions, having one on one meetings and maintaining your network with touches.
  • Stay plugged in and engaged to you network with social media.
  • Share information with your network and look for ways to help them on a regular basis. Become a resource center for them.
  • Finally, get a good Contact Resource Manager (CRM) that has robust relationship management features and social media hooks built into it. Most CRM’s just manage the sales cycle. I recommend Nimble because it give you great capabilities to manage engagement with your network and also has social media monitoring features.
  • If you company provides you with a CRM, be sure to keep your own as well and manager your personal professional network there.
In these changing times, having a robust human network is critical for success.

Whitney Hill       googleplus