Experience and knowledge play second fiddle

Experience and knowledge play second fiddle in business and employment

The expression ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’, is regarded with disdain by those who believe knowledge and experience should triumph when it comes to securing a job or new business, but recent findings suggest ‘who you know’ still wins every time.

BNI New Zealand Marketing Director, Colin Kennedy, says a recent research of 12,000 businesses worldwide by BNI founder and chairman, Dr Ivan Misner, found that relationships remain the best competitive advantage.

Dr Misner reports that 91.4 percent of the more than 12,000 professional business respondents claimed that networking played a role in their success. Six percent said it did not, and 2.7 percent that said that networking wasn’t applicable.

“Knowledge and experience – like customer service – are prerequisites nowadays. The rest is down to ‘who you know’, in any context. It’s ancient wisdom as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.

“By networking we don’t mean attending large functions and dishing out your business card – that really is not much more than cold call selling. Networking is about establishing a reciprocal relationship between a handful of people, or businesses, and yourself,” says Colin.

He said according to anecdotal evidence, most of BNI’s 2,600 SME members in New Zealand attribute between 60% and 90% of all their business income to word of mouth referrals.

Here are three tips to build a strong referral network:

• Identify 20 or 30 people who target a similar market to your business or employment type. They will become your network – it doesn’t need to be any bigger.
• Remain visible with everybody in your referral network. At least monthly, preferably weekly, because relationships are built on being ‘present’ in somebody’s life.
• Give good quality referrals before expecting to receive any return, and don’t give up if the referrals are slow in coming. Relationships take time.
“In the final wash, ‘who you know’ will always triumph over your knowledge and experience because people prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust. It’s just human nature,” he said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media