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Network Equals Net Worth

This article is more than 9 years old.

“It’s not what you know, but whom you know.”



This old adage is truer now than ever before. If you’re motivated to become wealthy or be successful in any endeavor, your ability to curate and leverage resources is, unquestionably, one of the critical keys to success.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you cannot benefit from being an industry expert. The complication is that while expertise is often necessary to be successful, experts tend to be highly fungible. If your network is a well-oiled machine, you should be able to find tremendous business opportunities without a problem, often irrespective of your expertise.

What regularly distinguishes self-made millionaires to those less affluent is whom they know coupled with their ability to maximize the value of these relationships. Because of their connections, the wealthy are more adept at sourcing resources to sourcing business opportunities. More precisely, a defining characteristic of self-made millionaires is their ability to connect people with people and people with projects all while benefiting themselves.

While “networking” is readily embraced and extolled within business circles, what’s so telling is that relatively few professionals and executives are particularly good at it. It’s rare to find people who are systematically identifying other individuals who can be leveraged to meaningfully enhance their businesses and career opportunities. What’s even more telling is that when most professionals and executives identify such individuals, they rarely put in the time and effort to develop the quality relationship that produces extraordinary results. 
In effect, most people network poorly. Too often they mistake activity for productivity.

With unerring consistency, when individuals, irrespective of their field, focus intensively on their array of relationships – their networks – they usually find a treasure trove of new business opportunities that can translate into significant personal wealth. The problem is that very few professionals and executives are adept at effectively evaluating and strategizing their relationships making it impossible to derive the greatest benefits from them.

It’s important to note that professionals and executives aren’t the only ones who tend to fail to strategically grow their networks and maximize their relationships. Segments of the wealthy also are often less than accomplished in this regard.

In a recent study of ultra-wealthy inheritors, for example, it’s clear that they have an amazing array of family ties, personal relationships, and business connections. Many of them literally have the ability to connect with most anyone they want – and they know it. However, many of these inheritors admit to not knowing how to meaningfully benefit from their ability to access other influential and powerful people.

There’s no question about what professionals, executives, and most anyone can accomplish with high-caliber strategic networking. More than any technical prowess, effective networking is an especially significant driver of personal wealth. In other words, networking equals net worth.