This week, guest blogger Graham Dick discusses putting a different spin on networking that he says might be just what you’re looking for to increase your level of success.

A New Twist on Who You Know
By Graham Dick C.R., C.M.P.

Everyone has heard the adage, “It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know.” I want to submit to you a new twist that I believe will turbo charge your level of success: “It’s not just who you know, it’s who knows you.”

I don’t know about you, but my memory just isn’t the steel trap I wish it was. I’ve even been known to forget someone’s name, and boy does that bug me. Yes, I’ve gone to the seminars on using different memory techniques to help remember names, and some would say I’m pretty good at it but from my perspective I just keep falling short. Then I had a paradigm shift that I want to share with you.

Using the universal principle of ‘leverage’, I found a way to leverage my memory by getting people to remember me. I realized that every highly successful person I observed was recognized and known by many times more people than he/she could possibly remember. The president of a country is known by millions, yet the people he knows numbers (maybe) in the thousands.

How could I increase my success by leveraging who knows me? In the case of my industry and business, it’s by volunteering and participating wherever I can add value. That may be locally with the Food Bank or Ronald McDonald House, Chamber of Commerce or Rotary. It may be regionally, by organizing educational events or writing a column in the local paper/magazines. It may be internationally, by participating in RIA and other large industry groups. The value proposition you create when you give of your skills/gifts will always return to you many times over.

Effective networking adds to who you know, but effective volunteering will increase who knows you.


Graham Dick, CR, CMP, is a past officer/director of RIA and current member of the Environmental Council. E-mail Graham at graham@genesisrestorations.com.