I was having an interesting conversation yesterday about business in general with another gentleman. It was an interesting contrast as I’m personally not the type of person who say hangs out at bars to mingle with people whereas he mentioned that he had actually met a lot of good contacts this way and it is in many ways his lifestyle.

We then started to talk about our personal experiences on whether we found that more people tend to do business with you because of your personality where they can relate to you like a friend or if demonstrating your knowledge and track record is more effective. While like anything it is always to have a good balance, it was kind of a fun conversation as we kept throwing “what if” type of thoughts to each other.

For example, for a person that is too outgoing does it prevent say more formal high figured people from wanting to speak to you? Likewise, does being too professional prevent you from getting your name out there faster as there are more casual people in existent than can spread the word about you faster?

In general, it seemed like we were both in an agreement that by being more socially involved in more pubic gathering activities you tend to acquire more personal leads/contacts whereas if you are one who focuses more on say an identity and its reputation it tends to bring more people directly to you. Realistically though, you do need both in the big picture I’d say.

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I had a fun opportunity to be on a film set recently and a lot of people were participating as either a casual hobby or side engagement to their regular life I guess you can say. Now the people that were there obviously didn’t know anything about each other.

Now what was interesting was that after mingling around with others there was this one group of people that were talking to each other and one person mentioned he needed a photographer. It just happened that one person in the group was a professional photographer. The person then expressed quite loudly in a humorous way on how that’s why you should always be nice to everyone as you never know who you could be talking to.

The funny thing too was that I encountered a similar situation where I was talking to a lady who happened to be a teacher and she was struggling with Internet related matters as she couldn’t figure out what to do. Again, it just so happens that I know a lot about those types of things and she was delighted to go home and put her new found knowledge in action.

It’s kind of too coincidental in some ways too huh? But in general, never pre-judge people and treat others well as that person you are talking to could easily be the help that you are looking for either presently or in the future. Especially from a business perspective, it can’t hurt to have more connections.

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I had an interesting conversation with a person where the topic revolved around how having a good support system can often be an important aspect when it comes to things like starting a business. At the same time, he mentioned how a lot of people will say they are your biggest fan/supporter yet when time comes where you could truly use their help they are nowhere to be seen.

He sure took it to the extreme though in terms of sorting people which was kind of surprising I thought. For example, he mentioned one time where he was defrauded over some money and while he was able to perfectly handle the situation himself, he decided to ask some people in his network that he knew could help him. While almost everyone had that “So sorry” response, apparently less than 20% of the people were prepared to want to do something to help. By doing this, he mentions that he has been able to align himself with the right people.

I think it is kind of difficult to just sort people in that way as to a certain extent I would say acknowledging your issue is support in itself. On top of that, you may also unfairly establish a high level that someone would have to aid you to qualify as “real support” too which is kind of dangerous.

I personally never forget my roots I guess you can say as almost everything that I do I always remember those who were there since the beginning. It’s kind of like investing in a company I guess where there are those who were at your side when you were almost unheard of and those that are simply trying to hop on for the ride at its peak and will be the first ones to leave when it slows down. Isn’t that usually the best way to weed people out if you had to from a business perspective?

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I saw a scenario recently where two people who were in different companies offered similar services. One was already established and the other was still a young and growing company.

The person with the established company was kind of odd I thought as he appeared to continually boast about how many employees he had compared to the other person as a way to say that they aren’t as good. That just made me think how one day when that small company becomes a giant they will remember that.

I usually only see things like that in the movies as I think in real life it is kind of a risky and unwise thing to do from a business perspective. Sounds more like a something that belongs in the schoolyard. On top of that, I always remember the saying on how little fish know big fishes as well. People have to start from somewhere.

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Today I went to an event that was simply a way to meet more people to generate new contacts. While it was okay, I’m kind of surprised to see that for a lot of these events certain people are reluctant to speak to others who are in the same field/industry as they are.

I once had this funny experience where I attended an event and as expected people began to talk to each other to find out more about what they do and offer. The activity was to simply speak to the person right next to you. The person that I talked to just happened to run a business that offered some of the same type of services as myself and it was definitely an odd conversation.

Essentially, I took it as a positive where maybe we can discuss about tools and challenges that we have experienced in our business. The person instead saw it from a different view and figured that I was their “competitor” and so they didn’t want to reveal anything to me. It’s one thing to want to protect your trade secrets and another to be overly paranoid to the point that you are cutting off ties with people you may potentially need in the future. Strangely enough, that was indeed the case with this scenario.

You never know as what you don’t need today may be something you do need tomorrow. At the same time, it can be great to collaborate with others in such a way that both parties will benefit.

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