Members vs. Subscribers

One of the really interesting things about having been around as long as we have is that we have experienced what it is like to be part of a community both on and off the Internet.

As many who read this blog are aware (i.e. both of you) I started ExecuNet in 1988. Hell, now that I think of it, there were fax machines then and we still thought technology had gone beyond amazing and then along came CDs and left us speechless. Time flies as they say.

In 1995 we silently and with great trepidation turned on our website, we were concerned about a lot of things, not the least of which was losing the relationship with our members who up until that point could not become a member without actually talking to a real live person and/or getting hundreds of emails a day from high school kids with nothing better to do.

The email overload turned out not to be a problem then, but it is now with the never ending SPAM for Viagra, Rx offerings from Canada and easy money opportunities from the President of Nigeria.

While executives can now join online, we have held firmly to our belief that really effective networks/communitites (be they for business or career or both) are built and based on real relationships not simply a collection of Vcards.

I was reminded of this recently when I thought about a panel I was on some years ago wtih Craig Newmark of Craigslist and Laurel Touby, the founder of Media Bistro. The subject we discussed was the building of online communities.

Even though none of us had talked to the other about what we were going to say. The common thread was that each of our sites had grown by personal referral and personal involvement with our "community."

“Word-of-mouth” is obviously impossible to actively control, but when it works in your favor, the positive results can be quite powerful. ExecuNet was, as mentioned above, formed well before commercial Internet usage, and obviously at that time we relied heavily on referrals from our members.

Now nearly twenty-two years later, we still credit recommendations from our members for much of our success and longevity.

In today's world, the value of word-of-mouth buzz is compounded by the speed in which news travels over the Internet. My desktop blinks constatly as the "tweets" pour in.

No matter how people get here, however, I have always felt that personal referral was the most powerful advertising there is, and that is evidenced by the fact that the community we have with ExecuNet is based on the commitment that comes from being a member. That was -- and still is -- the key factor in why personal referral remains the way most of our members get here.

One of the first questions many people who contact us for the first time ask is how we measure our effectiveness as a resource for senior-level executives? My response is usually along the lines of "How did you hear of us?"

The answer more often than not is "A friend of mine told me about you." To which I then respond, "Well, you have now found a good part of the answer -- by reputation. Most people I know don't refer people to something unless they feel there is value there. I don’t, and I wouldn't expect you to either."

There is a real difference between being a member of something and simply a subscriber. Subscribers transact; members TRUST.

Mr. Rogers Networking Neighborhood

Like most companies, we set aside a couple of days a year to lock ourselves up somewhere out of the office and do the best we can to step back from the day to day and try and do two things:

1. Look ahead a few years and talk about where we are versus where we want to be, and

2. Make sure that our core beliefs continue to support the strategies we set for ourselves going forward.

In the course of our discussions, our CMO, Tony Vlahos was taking us through a discussion about the experience of being a member of a career and business network such as ExecuNet.

Aside from being very creative, Tony has a gift for painting extraordinary word pictures when he is trying to make a point. Actually he just has a way with words no matter what he's talking about.

In any event, we were talking about the hows, whys and ways of trying to help members to help each other and Tony concluded his presentation on the subject with a quote from Fred Rogers. It was one that I had not heard before but which I thought really hit home in terms of why we talk to our members all the time not just about networking, but much more importantly about effective networking. Translation: it about giving, not about getting.

What I so liked about this particular quote from the icon in the cardigan sweater is that he really is talking about the fundamental foundation upon which all meaningful relationships are built.

Be it related to your own career or your business these are not bad words to have pasted on your mirror or on the wall of your office:

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

The Value of Networks

Kevin Wheeler has another of his insightful posts on ERE today which caught my attention for a couple of reasons: (1) his name was attached to it, and (2) he was talking about what brings real value to a network, the latter, of course, being not only close to my heart, but part of what we feel is a major part of our DNA here at ExecuNet.

Certainly the entire article is worth reading for sure, but as you might well have guessed already, one of the key points he makes is that that all too often people (and in this case he is talking about recruiters, but the concept applies equally as well to anyone no matter what their profession) is that like anything else in life, it really is far more about quality than quantity, or as he puts it in part:

"They judge themselves and others as "successful" by how many people are in their network."

Surprise, surprise? Not!

Of course Kevin is right as I would guess most readers know based on their own life experiences, irrespective of their professional lives.

What continues to amaze me however, even after all these years is that even though I think most people understand this on an intellectual level, there are still those who feel that collecting names electronically or physically is as Kevin says about quantity not quality. In some cases it starts to sound like the LinkedIn Olympics.

This, of course, is not to say that LI is not a valuable resource, it most certainly is, but the gathering of thousands of names from the 15 million profiles or whatever it is these days be it on LI or one of the other "social networks" does not translate to a network that is really meaningful on a personal level.

When it comes to the care and feeding of a real network and most especially one which has to do with helping to maintain or advance and enhance one's professional career, it's not about numbers as such, it's about relationships that have been built over time so that when your name comes up, the words that flash across people's minds are descriptors such as: trust, respect, insightful, helpful, bright, responsive, and supportive and/or a long list of other adjectives that any of us could add.

So, if you are going to use numbers as a metric in terms of your network, I would count words, not names.

It's Not a Program, It's a Process

For quite a while, I have followed a blog written with wonderful wit and sensitivity by GL Hoffman which he calls What Would Dad Say.

Maybe I like it so much because our sense of humor seems in sync or his philosophy regarding career and/or life management seems to be very much in the same ballpark as my own. I am not sure, but it also could be because somehow he finds the time to post stuff daily if not hourly. Not only is there volume, but it is well written and worth reading. No wonder I like it.

Anyway, he had a long post today which he called This is a Story about Networking and Not about Ohio State Football. It was an apt title and if you are curious enough to see how one connects to the other, I would suggest you check out the post. I think those folks who have the perception that networking is only something one does when they are looking for a job will find it particularly instructive.

I have been talking about effective networking being a process and not a program for so long now that I often think that I have worn the phrase out, but in reading about coach Tressel's actions in Hoffman's post, I think that he serves as the best example I have heard of in a long time that proves that real networking much more about giving than it is about getting.