The professional network you surround yourself with will have a drastic effect over the direction and outcome of your life and happiness.
People you surround yourself with will effect you emotionally, spiritually, personally, financially and professionally. By having a solid, trustworthy, and effective team of centers of Influence (COIs), you could succeed in each of these areas of your life. Throughout your life, developing your COIs should be a win-win. To initially establish COI’s and keep that win-win mindset, I recommend doing one thing: Give. Simply giving a referral(s), before you ask for them, seems to be one of the secrets to gaining trust and respect of potential COIs. Giving, is one of those things, that typically affects our happiness way more than we could imagine.
Your centers of influence can and will be a source of opportunity, if utilized correctly.
Think about the last job you got, opportunity you had, or professional activity or event you went to. How did you hear about the opportunity? A large percentage of the time, these opportunities come form people you associate with on a consistent basis or even your COIs. In my personal experience, almost every “job” I was ever offered came from networking or one of my centers of influence. Developing, maintaining, and nurturing your COIs will give you fantastic opportunities both personally and professionally.
Center’s of Influence (COIs) make you more valuable to your clients
Building a team of people that you know, like, and trust, builds your inherent value you can provide clients. Think about it…would you rather work with an individual who had a team of resources, served as a connector, and solved problems? Or would you rather work with someone who simply goes through the motions, does a solid job, however does not go above and beyond to create value? I know who I want fighting in my corner and it happens to be the one who sees value in having a network of COIs.