Don’t be Jack of all trades

He takes time from running his college every Wednesday and Saturday to go and fish.

He uses fishing as a networking tool. He rarely misses out on most competitions.
However, last weekend, James told me that he was frustrated that his consistency in fishing had not yielded much benefit to him.

“Ben, I have been fishing religiously twice a week. Over the years I have fished, wined and dined with captains of industry, politicians and other celebrities. I have several networking awards from the Business Networking Association (BNA).

“However, my networking journey has not translated into real business growth for my college. I know most of the influential people but I have not been able to leverage on their influence to increase the tentacles of my empire. I am out of depth with what I should do.”
I told him that it is not who he knew that matters but people who know him that do.

“For instance, you know Sir Alex Ferguson, Lionel Messi, Oprah, Oliver Mtukudzi, T. D. Jakes, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, and many others. Do these people know you?” I asked.

He said that he thought networking was the game of life and that was exactly what he had been working on for the past 10 years – getting to know people.
In his opinion, knowing people was supposed to enable him to access support for his business.
I told him that he had to get important people that had an interest in his line of business to know him.

Getting Wayne Rooney to know you if he has no interest in enrolling at your college in Zimbabwe is a serious waste of time.
I agree playing sport is one of the avenues some use to know people and get people to know them as well.

Should you choose sport as a networking tool, ensure you find competitors who share the same interest with you. Winning networking awards for fishing with streetkids will not translate into increase in your net worth.’’

The majority of people fail to understand that they have to deliberately make people know them for a skills set that they have and demonstrate how that skill set can help them to solve their own problems.

On the other hand, a person can be very famous for non-value-adding reputations such as prostitution, womanising, violence, lying, stealing and other negative behaviours. Negative popularity does not impact on your bottom line.

Can you solve people’s needs?
All people on this planet have different types of problems, but most of the people have no idea who can help them to solve their personal challenges.
Some people are able to solve some other people’s problems but they are not available when the need to be solved is there either because they are too busy elsewhere or they simply do not see the link between solving other people’s problems and their well-being.

One of my relatives, John, is a multi-talented journeyman. He is very comfortable solving electrical, plumbing and carpentry problems.
For the past 10 years my family has relied on him to solve some of our household challenges relating to carpentry, electrics and plumbing.

However, his efficiency has deteriorated rapidly in recent days. For instance, if we call him for emergency assistance, he either does not pitch up or he comes after a couple of days. We have recently made a decision not to seek his services because he is no longer reliable. Every time we bump into him, he moans about his poverty and failure to land lucrative contracts.
In my opinion he deserves to be poor and remain in obscurity (if he fails to provide service to his clients, including me) because his talent is useless if it cannot solve people’s needs.

Zimbabwe is richly endowed with talented people who cannot use their talents to solve other people’s needs for entertainment, hunger solutions, financial solutions, academic solutions, legal advice and many others.

Do you know what you can do for others?
Yesterday I overheard a conversation, which went as follows: “Uri kumboita nezvei mazuwa ano (What are you doing these days)? “Ndirikungokiya kiya (I am doing anything that can earn me a living).”

“Unozivikanwa nezvei (what are you known for?)” “Ndirimureserese bhururu. (I am just doing everything my dear)’
Conversations such as these are very common these days. If a person is not clear about his/her profession, chances are this person will also not be clear of how to develop him/herself.

Ultimately no one will ever appreciate or know you for any given skill because the skill will never be developed adequately to help someone solve his/her need. Dynamism is good but one can destroy his or her talent by attempting to try everything.

What are you known for? Can people put their name on the block for you?
It is not very difficult to find out what you are known for. The quickest way to find out how many referrals you got for whatever you were doing for the past three years.
One of the methods to find out whether a sportsmen is very good at his game is to find out the number of companies which want the particular player to endorse their product.
One the other hand, clubs are willing to part with huge amounts of money for what they perceive as talent.

Never mind John’s talent, we are now not comfortable referring his services to our colleagues because he might taint our reputation as well.

How much are you worth?

The next step in self-introspection is to investigate how many people are willing to spend on your talent.
In my field of competence, companies are willing to part with as much as £300 million for two hours work. Investors, companies or clubs can pay huge sums of money for what they perceive as a talent and nothing for what they don’t perceive as talent.

We are all richly endowed with various talents. What are doing to ensure we change people’s lives through our talents?
Are we not spending our valuable time trying to out do each other on non-value adding activities?
Are we spending enough hours networking to ensure people are exposed to our talents?