Rae Stonehouse, author of Power Networking for Shy People: Tips & Techniques for Moving from Shy to Sly! offers proven sage advice on how to maximize your business networking effectiveness. In Johnny Appleseed Knew What He Was Doing Rae provides sage advice on how to cultivate relationships.

1. Johnny Appleseed Knew What He Was Doing: Power Networking Tips &
Techniques
Legend has it that Johnny Appleseed travelled the American countryside
spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went.
In fact, according to Wikipedia, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built
fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the
care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to
tend the nursery.
Many people’s business networking activities can be a lot like randomly
spreading those apple seeds. Some might grow but most likely left to their own,
they will fail to develop and eventually die off.
Relationships need to be nurtured. Often the word cultivated is used to describe what needs to take
place for a relationship to grow. Both words are really describing an active interest, desire and taking
action oriented steps to develop a relationship with another individual.
So how does one cultivate a relationship? I have some cynical colleagues who would say that would
treat them the same way as you would cultivate mushrooms. You keep them in the dark and feed them
BS [male cow manure.] I would suspect that they have few quality connections. I certainly wouldn’t
want to be connected to them with that attitude.
Let’s leave the agriculture analogy for a while and go to back to the question of how does one cultivate a
relationship?
Consider these following steps or actions: (They aren’t necessarily in the order that you would take.
Relationship building can be more of a circuitous journey rather than a lineal one.)
 Research the individual. Check them out on Linkedin. Find out what their vocation and
background is.
 Invite them out for coffee. Look for common interests.
 Be on the lookout for resource materials related to their interests and forward it on to them.
 Send them thank you notes or appropriate gifts to recognize help that they have provided to
you.
 Send congratulatory messages e.g. cards/notes by snail mail or perhaps by e-mail for important
milestones both personal and business. Seeing their name in the paper can be a great
opportunity to drop them a note and congratulate them, assuming it wasn’t in Crime Stoppers
or the Most Wanted List of course.
 If you are comfortable in doing so, send them business referrals. The law of reciprocity says that
if you do something good for somebody else they in turn will do something good for you.

2.  Perhaps you have heard of the concept of “unconditional love?” To successfully cultivate a
relationship you can’t put terms in place. Doing so could jeopardize the relationship.
 Don’t appear to be a stalker with your focussed interest.
So far we have been looking at active steps that you can take. For a relationship to develop you have to
be open to sharing of yourself. It can’t be a one way transaction. There has to be a payoff for you as
well.
Getting back to that agricultural analogy of cultivating, sometimes you have to do some pruning to help
strengthen your plantings. The same thing applies to your network. There will always be people that are
suspicious of your motives or intentions. Perhaps this isn’t somebody that you want in your network.
There will also be people that once you get to know them, you find that you really don’t want to
associate with them. It might be necessary to sever all ties with the individual. If you aren’t comfortable
dealing with or relating to an individual you are unlikely to want to refer them to another connection.
Their behaviour could have the undesirable affect of reflecting on you and your business.
An interesting side note mentioned in the Wikipedia article stated that apple trees grown from seed are
rarely sweet or tasty, more on the sour side, which was apparently perfect for producing hard cider and
applejack back in those days. Modern day orchardists plant strains of trees that consistently produce a
fruit that is desirable and marketable. There is no use in providing all the labour in cultivating a crop if
you aren’t able to realize a bountiful harvest.
So when it comes to business networking will you randomly toss out those seeds or will you take your
time and cultivate a manageable amount of productive connections? Your choice … sweet or sour?
Top photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Rae Stonehouse is the author of Power Networking For Shy People: Tips &
Techniques to Move from Shy to Sly! Visit us
at http://www.powernetworkingforshypeople.com Join our discussion on
Facebook & LinkedIn. Just search for Power Networking for Shy People.