I remember my older sister giving me my first finger trap and telling me to “try as hard as I could to get out”. That was the real magic of the thing – it was someone telling you to do something that your instinct was telling you to also do. Because let’s face it, if you put your fingers into the trap and the person bestowing it upon you said, “just relax, and you’ll get out easily”, it would just seem like a ridiculous waste of intertwined straw like material. After struggling with it for a while, you realize that you couldn’t possibly be stuck in such a terrible predicament forever and use your cognitive brain to get out. So, for many of us that are starting a business or are in a growth phase, the same goes for business development, or more specifically, networking.

For me, I hit the ground running hard in 2024 and was on a mission to network, network, network. Meet with everyone I could and find out how we could actively help each other out with our network connections. Every meeting had a specific purpose, and in most cases, I had a very specific cadence to meet to deem the meeting a “success”.

My original plan had 3 or 4 “requirements” of a meeting and a few resulting activities I would require myself to perform.

Preparation:

• Evaluate each contact to see their past career path, what they are posting (to show interest) and researching their current company to get a better understanding of what their objectives and needs may be where I could be additive.
• Determine intersections in our network that would be good focal points as possible connections for either side, including possible respective clients where either of us could provide help and services.
• Prepare for the meeting by chatting with others that may have referred me to them or vice versa to get more information.

Follow Up:

• Follow up with the contact with an email summarizing the meeting and copying the notes into HubSpot CRM (shout out to HubSpot).
• Reach out to 1 to 2 contacts that may be helpful to the other person, especially if they may have complimentary services or products.
• Add the contact to a drip campaign that included follow up steps, dates, and possible helpful content that may be of help in the other person’s business.

I still spend time on some of these tasks when doing business development, but I am much less rigorous with the process than in the past. Instead, I try to go into the conversations a lot more relaxed and less agenda focused. I notice that the more relaxed I am in the conversation, the more likely I am to discover more about the other individual and possibly uncover things that I may not have in a more structured mindset. I have created a new process, focusing much more on the “relaxing” part of the equation – as it is with the finger traps:

• Really get to know the person through conversation like you would have with a new friend, not a business colleague. It is much more fun and interesting to know what the new contact likes, their hobbies and interests and their general personality than just “What they do”.
• Personally invest in the conversation; just as if I was going to be good friends with the contact, empathetically putting myself in a position of understanding how we would work together, or how their personality and their values would work better with others that may create a new connection.
• Create meaningful follow-up through introductions to others, invitations to events and/or setting a follow-up to decide whether we would want and be able to work together.

I have realized that being an Entrepeneur and business owner has it’s level of stress and responsibility. The weight of obtaining new business while making sure that you are the best you can be for your current clients is always a balancing act. That part of the business can ultimately feel like the finger trap. However, meeting new people and enjoying the process of business development should be the answer to get out of the trap.