101 Reminders of the Value of Connecting (No. 28 Is My Favorite)

Connecting, and building a powerful network, is not only good for your business it's absolutely crucial to its success. The bigger your network, the more influence you have, the more resources you would have available to you, and the more attractive you will be to other people.

If you're one of those people who doesn't like to network and would do anything to get out of it, here are 101 reminders of why it's important to both you and your business.

1. Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly can yield great results for years to come - Diane Helbig
2. Many believe effective networking is done face-to-face, building a rapport with someone by looking at them in the eye, leading to a solid connection and foundational trust. - Raymond Arroyo
3. Personal relationships are always the key to good business. You can buy networking; you can't buy friendships - Lindsay Fox
4. All the time and effort put into networking can be all for naught if there is no follow-through. The same goes for sales. And leadership. And well, everything - Beth Ramsay
5. It's great to spend time at a networking event with someone you know and like. But that's not what you're there for. Your goal is to expand your network by meeting new people. - Beth Ramsay
6. Networking is not about just connecting people. It's about connecting people with people, people with ideas, and people with opportunities. - Michele Jennae
7. Networking means the act of exchanging information with people who can help you professionally. - Michele Jennae
8. The way of the world is meeting people through other people - Robert Kerrigan
9. If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people. - Chinese Proverb
10. It's all about people. It's about networking and being nice to people and not burning any bridges. - Mike Davidson
11. The successful networkers I know, the ones receiving tons of referrals and feeling truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person's needs ahead of their own. - Bob Burg
12. The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity. - Keith Ferrazzi
13. Networking with integrity creates a greater willingness of all parties to be part of a human conduit to serve as energy and resource to one another. Sometimes you will give more than you receive and sometimes you will get back more than you give. It's not about keeping score. - Chris London
14. Network selectively ' You never know when someone might say yes' is marketing for dummies. Take the time to build a profile of your ideal customers, and target your networking activities to reach them. Speak to those who are already predisposed to want what you offer. Almost any profile is better than anyone with a pulse' - Steve Pavlina
15. Networking is an essential part of building wealth. - Armstrong Williams
16. My Golden Rule of Networking is simple: Don't keep score. - Harvey Mackay
17. If you want to become successful in a business, you have to build relationships with people, both online and offline. - Unknown
18. It's not about finding great people; it's about becoming a great person. - Mark Yarnell
19. Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. - Ivan Misner
20. Networking is an enrichment program, not an entitlement program - Susan Roane
21. Networking is the No. 1 unwritten rule of success in business. - Sallie Krawcheck
22. When you establish relationships, build trust and Credibility, Over time people will listen to your recommendations. - Unknown
23. Great Entrepreneurs build deep people connections. - Unknown
24. Networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals. - Seth Godin
25. Networking is simply the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships. It works best, however, when emphasizing the "give" part. - Bob Burg
26. Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for. - Christine Comaford-Lynch
27. Instead of better glasses, your network gives you better eyes - Ronald Burt
28. The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everyone else looks for work. - Robert T. Kiyosaki
29. Make sure you pick good people to build your business with, as they will determine 80 percent of your success. - Unknown
30. What makes networking work is that it sets up win-win situations in which all parties involved get to take something home. Networking is a sharing process. Until you understand that, you won't have much of a network. - Earl G. Graves, Sr.
31. The true value of networking doesn't come from how many people we can meet but rather how many people we can introduce to others. - Simon Sinek
32. I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own efforts. - John D. Rockefeller
33. If people like you they'll listen to you, but if they trust you they'll do business with you. - Zig Ziglar
34. A really important part of networking is actually about what you bring to the table-not just what you want to get out of it. Contribution is a big part of networking success. - Gina Romero
35. Pulling a good network together takes effort, sincerity and time. - Alan Collins
36. To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship with mutual trust - George Ross
37. Network continually - 85 percent of all jobs are filled through contacts and personal references. - Brian Tracy
38. Networking is by far the most important aspect of business school. The classroom is a distant second. - Jay Devivo
39. Success in any field, but especially in business is about working with people, not against them. - Keith Ferrazzi
40. Technology does not run an enterprise, relationships do. - Patricia Fripp
41. Make a list of 200 prestigious, influential, and powerful people with whom you want to work, play, grow and do business. - Mark Victor Hansen
42. If you're not networking, you're not working. - Denis Waitley
43. You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people
44. interested in you. - Dale Carnegie
45. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others. - African Proverb
46. My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's - Oscar Wilde
47. You take people as far as they will go, not as far as you would like them to go. - Jeanette Rankin
48. Those that win in networking give first give generously and give often. - Unknown
49. Networking is a verb. You build a network by actively networking. - Unknown
50. Too many individuals network with the purpose of accomplishing an immediate goal. That's not networking, that's selling. - Unknown
51. The size of your network doesn't matter - it is the quality of your network that counts. - Unknown
52. The value you get from networking with people you don't know yet is higher than the value of networking with people you've known for years who are in the same situation as you are. - Unknown
53. Networking is about making meaningful, lasting connections that lead to one-to-one relationships. - Les Garnas
54. Everyone should build their network before they need it. - Dave Delaney
55. If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there. - Robert Kiyosaki
56. Respect of people is the cornerstone of communication and networking. - Susan Roane
57. Networking is not about hunting. It is about farming. It's about cultivating relationships. Don't engage in premature solicitation. You'll be a better networker if you remember that. - Dr. Ivan Misner
58. To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship with mutual trust. - George Ross
59. The mark of a good conversationalist is not that you can talk a lot. The mark is that you can get others to talk a lot. Thus, good schmoozer's are good listeners, not good talkers - Guy Kawasaki
60. Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver, and this connection gives birth to a new sense of belonging. - Deepak Chopra
61. Nothing liberates your greatness like the desire to help, the desire to serve. - Marianne Williamson
62. Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for. - Christine Comaford-Lynch
63. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou
64. If your business comes from relationships, relationships should be your business. - Doug Ales
65. Build a relationship with people you do serious business. One can escape a deal but not a relation easily. - Sunita Biddu
66. The Opposite of networking is NOT working - Unknown
67. A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. - John Lennon
68. Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together. - James Cash Penney
69. Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value. - Albert Einstein
70. Becoming well known (at least among your prospects & connections) is the most valuable element in the connection process. - Jeffrey Gitomer
71. You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality. - Walt Disney
72. Position yourself as a center of influence, the one who knows the movers and shakers. People will respond to that, and you'll soon become what you project. - Bob Burg
73. The path to success is to take massive, determined action. - Anthony Robbins
74. For almost the first year of The Muse's life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don't necessarily think that's the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn't come into startups with any network. - Kathryn Minshew
75. Best results are often achieved well before you need a job, by consistently networking so that when you find yourself job-hunting you have a large network to work with. - Erik Qualman
76. We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk. - Thomas Moore
77. The people when rightly and fully trusted will return the trust. - Abraham Lincoln
78. When people honor each other, there is a trust established that leads to synergy, interdependence, and deep respect. Both parties make decisions and choices based on what is right, what is best, what is valued most highly. - Blaine Lee
79. Build Relationships, not just Business Card Collections. - Unknown
80. When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and effort, it is ready to climb. - Patanjali
81. A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship. - John D. Rockefeller
82. I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake. - John D. Rockefeller
83. All lasting business is built on friendship. - Alfred A. Montapert
84. Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them. - W. Edwards Deming
85. No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or to get all the credit. - Andrew Carnegie
86. So the only way on earth to influence the other fellow is to talk about what he wants and show him how to get it. - Dale Carnegie
87. You don't have to be a "person of influence" to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me. - Scott Adams
88. The humblest individual experts some influence, either for good or evil, upon others. - Henry Ward Beecher
89. Network for where you want to be, not where you are. - Unknown
90. Be around people who have something of value to share with you. Their impact will continue to have a significant influence. - Jim Rohn
91. Influence may be the highest level of human skills. - Unknown
92. Are you a SNIOP? Someone who is Sensitive to the Negative Influence Of Others? - Zig Ziglar
93. You are in charge of your feelings, beliefs, and actions. And you teach others how to behave toward you. While you cannot change other people, you can influence them through your own behaviors and actions. By being a living role model of what you want to receive from others, you create more of what you want in your life. - Eric Allenbaugh
94. Those coaches who have enthusiasm for what they are doing influence the rest of the team. - Byron And Catherine Pulsifer
95. Ideas are the mightiest influence on earth. One great thought breathed into a man may regenerate him. - William Ellery Channing
96. The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that's true of everyone, don't you? - Tennessee Williams
97. The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions. A chip on the shoulder is too heavy a piece of baggage to carry through life. - John Hancock
98. You Don't Build a Business, You Build the People and then People Build the Business. - Unknown
99. Connections Open Doors, Relationship close deals. - Unknown
100. Ask the right person in the right room for the right level of help. - Unknown
101. It's not what you know, it's who you know. - Unknown