Networking – A Novel Perspective

“Start with Why”

An insightful and thought provoking TED Talk, delivered by Simon Sinek, available on YouTube. In the talk Simon introduces his Golden Circle of WHAT - HOW - WHY.

Briefly,

WHAT is the end goal or results to be achieved.

HOW is the process or strategy towards achieving it.

WHY is the purpose or motivation behind it.

Simon suggests to meaningfully capture your audience or potential client’s attention it is significantly more advantageous to engage them by beginning with delivering the WHY explanation, appealing to their emotions and aspirations. He shares examples of how this would work.

Now let’s consider a regular business networking event. A number of business persons getting together to get to better know one another and potentially identify business opportunities. The usual routine is to give your name and perhaps that of your business, typically the next question is “What do you do?” Simon suggests your response would have greater impact if you firstly put more emphasis creating an understanding of WHY you are doing it, followed by HOW you do it and then an explanation of WHAT you do.

Simply describing the problem or aspiration then how and what you deliver to achieve the desired result.

An interesting perspective, would this work for you?