“By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail.”
In life, as in work, we aim to plan for many things.
Somewhat grudgingly I know that what Benjamin Franklin tells us is right. How about you? Even if we don’t always enjoy planning or are not very good at it, we know that planning makes it more likely that whatever we are wanting to make happen is more likely to succeed.
So why not a people plan – a plan to build our tribe?
A friend of mine recently decided that he would introduce two different people from his network of contacts every week. The two criteria for introducing people were that they did not already know each other and my friend thought there could be some positive benefit to each person arising from the introduction. This could range from simply being that he thought they would like each other, to someone who was looking for legal advice and he introduced him to a lawyer. Critically, he was not looking to gain anything from making the introductions.
Within six months he had made 25 different introductions. He estimated that he had generated over $300,000 worth of business for different people. And it all came from an idea and meeting over coffee.
Within that same period, he started to get introduced around himself. He drank more coffee! His own tribe grew. He also got offers of work that would generate over $450,000 worth of work for his small business.
So how can you build your tribe? What’s your people plan look like?
