Networking Styles - Learning from the flowers and bees!

Spot the bee. (Click on the image to enlarge.) Are you a flower or a bee?

I learned this analogy from Damien Churton, www.yournaturalway.com . What I make of it is that as a networker you are either buzzing around bee-fashion, or in one place being highly visible and rather nice to the buzzy bee types.

I know both types. There are uber-bee-type networkers who belong to at least one breakfast club and frequently visit others, and who buzzaround all sorts of eventys and places where prospective clients and contacts are likely to be. They either have good cars and environmentally unfriendly petrol bills or they live inhabit the rich 'flowergardens' of big cities.

Meanwhile the flower networkers dress well, have great websites and business cards and are just in the right places waiting for bees. Nice.

You might be noticing how your networking style is relative to

bees and flowers, however, I don't think it's quite as easy as being this or that.

Personally, I'm a flower and a bee by turns. I think I currently tend towards flower, :-)  , but I wouldn't want to be stuck with that. I enjoy buzzing around too! - and even if I didn't I'd have to. Realising that I have a flower tendency/strength/quality is helpful because it reminds me to get out there and buzzzzz!

Try this if you like. Consider your networking style of late. More bee or more flower? Then consider what you need to do to develop the right balance for your personality and your business/work/life.

You could take that further too. What kind of a bee are you? - worker? drone? queen? bumble? leaf-cutter?....there are many. And what kind of a flower are you? Wow, what a range there is to choose from - dandelion, daisy, rose, clematis chrysanthemum......   I'm not suggesting this as a whole new personality inventory, but as food for thought, especially as there are so many networking and other events that you can attend and also people are becoming more aware of attraction marketing. It's worth thinking about.

Bee and flower?  How are you doing?

Comments

[Bodyc]

Hi, judybarber.typepad.com to GoogleReader! Thank you Bodyc