It's not about WHAT, but WHO you know!
I'm using LinkedIn.com to organize my professional contacts because I believe in the power of connections and who hasn't heard about the famous "six degrees of separation". Many times, things in my personal and professional life happened because of opportunities that I was offered or found through people I was somehow connected to. No matter where you are in your career, most of the time, relationships are the secret to ultimate success in business or otherwise. Success starts with building and maintaining these relationships!
"How on earth did I get in here?" I kept asking myself in those early days as an overwhelmed entrepreneur back in super-conservative Germany. There wasn't a single accounting or finance class in my background. My only exposure to business in my family was my uncle who was a self-made millionaire who build a hugely successful specialty restaurant and hotel. Looking around me, I saw ruthlessly focused young men and women who seemed to all know more than me about business. They'd gone on to crunch numbers or analyze spreadsheets in companies they or their families had build and seemed to do really well. Some were from wealthy families, and had pedigrees and legacies and the occasional "von", "van" and "de" in their names. It was pretty intimidating.
How was a guy like me from a working class family, with a high school degree, and a bunch of black belts going to compete with purebreds from Uni Heidelberg, or former Daimler Benz and Deutsche Bank interns who, from my perspective, seemed as if they'd been starting companies from their cribs?
The "Other" Thing
Good old hard work, I reassured myself, was one of the ways I'd beaten the odds and gotten into really good schools and obtained several black belts in various kind of martial arts. Sure, I'd read hundreds of business books and snug into University classes that were not part of my curriculum, but there was something else that separated me from the rest of my peers, and gave me an advantage. I seemed to have learned something long before I arrived on the entrepreneur level and it looked as if many of the other folks did not.
Eye Opener
As a kid, I bought groceries at the local supermarket for the elderly living across the street from our apartment building who had a hard time walking all the way to the market themselves in return for tips. I also did anything I was allowed to do at the local country club for the homeowners and children living in the wealthy part of town. It helped to open my eyes at an early age to recognize some of the things that set apart those who succeed and those who do not.
During those endless walks to and from the market, as I carried my grocery bags, I thought about how the people who had reached professional heights unknown to my mom and dad (or my family in general) helped each other. They found each other jobs, they invested time and money into each other's ventures and ideas and they made sure their children got help getting into the best schools, got just the right internships, and ultimately landed best jobs.
Before my very own eyes I saw living proof that success breeds success and, indeed, the rich do get richer. Their network of friends and associates was the most potent club the people I worked for had in their bag. Poverty, I realized, wasn't only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that could help you make more of yourself.
The Game
I came to believe that in some very specific ways, life, like my beloved martial arts, is a game, and that the people who know the rules, and know them well, play it best and ultimately succeed. And the rule in life that has unprecedented power is that the individual who knows the right people, for the right reasons, and utilizes the power of these relationships, can become a member of the "club," whether they started out as a grocery boy or not!
Coming to America
What many of my fellow peers lacked, I discovered, were the skills and strategies that are associated with fostering and building relationships. I became good at networking early on and have continued to build my own web of friends and associates over the years. After I came to America in 1994 I came to realize that no matter where you want to build your company or life the same rules still apply. Success in any field, but especially in business, is about working WITH people, not against them. No tabulation of dollars and cents can account for one immutable fact: business is a human venture, pushed forward and determined by people.
In the U.S., and especially in business, many people are brought up to cherish Lone Wolf individualism. Folks who consciously court others to become involved in their lives are seen as schmoozers, brown nosers, or smarmy sycophants.
Bow before the Master
in 1994, while learning English, I met a guy who went on to become my voice coach at first and ultimately my best friend. "Pete" (the Ben Neumann way of spelling "Petie"), I learned quickly, had gotten a license from an apparently higher power to be everybody's best friend. People were (and still are) flocking to Pete like insects to light. This guy, I realized, was the manifestation of my connector theory and to see a true natural master of connections work was exciting and humbling at the same time.
Pete, while introducing me to virtually 75% of the people who today make up my friends and social environment, taught me how to reach out to people as a way to make a difference in people's lives, as well as a way to explore and learn and enrich my own; it became the conscious construction of my life's path. I didn't think of it as cold and impersonal, the way I thought of "networking." I was, instead, connecting - sharing my knowledge and resources, time and energy, friends and associates, and empathy and compassion in a continual effort to provide value to others, while coincidentally increasing my own. Like business itself, being a connector is not about managing transactions, but of managing relationships.
The Principles
I learned that true networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. Over the years I have mentored people into very successful business and relationship people and hopefully also enriched their personal lives. It was always about working hard to give more than you get. And I came to believe that there were a long list of tough-minded principles that made this soft-hearted philosophy possible. My other best friend Chris keeps encouraging me to write these things down and one day publish them in book form. I'm not sure, if that is what I will ultimately do, or if I just pass them on to my two boys, but it sure is a flattering thought.
My "Ben Neumann Principles of Success in building successful Relationship" (still working on the wording