Selling Connectivity - You Are The Product!

Selling Connectivity - You Are The Product!

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Earlier this week Matthew Rippon - IP Lawyer at Particular - posted a blog article about the dangers of being sold connectivity.  This is where a consultant sells themselves as someone who can open doors and make significant introductions, for a fee of course.

The original article can be found here: http://matthewsviews.com/2014/06/18/beware-of-the-connected/

It started me off thinking about how we treat people, as colleagues or as connections, or as data, or as a sellable asset in our work.

I have a large network built up over a number of years.  LinkedIn has been an invaluable aid in growing that network and I use Plaxo to help keep the contacts in my Microsoft Outlook up to date.  I have around 5000 valid contacts right around the world and there isn't a day that goes by where I am not searching through those contacts for either a direct interaction over something I'm working on or a more secondary interaction (introduction to someone new etc.)

I do quite often get unsolicited requests to be introduced to someone in my network by people that I don't know or are on the very fringes of my established network. What I tend to do is to drill down with the person asking to see what the perceived need for the introduction is to determine if I want to pass that connection on.

My existing network feeds me tremendously with information and opportunities and I should recognise that value and protect it vigorously.

I usually look at relevancy as being the main deciding factor in if I should act on the connection request. If I can see a good degree of correlation between both individuals, what they do and what level they are at then I see this as being the right basis for an introduction.  If I'm not sure then I email the person directly to discuss the introduction request before making it, just so that I'm not spreading irrelevant and time consuming activity.

The other thing here is about being able to sell this kind of activity on the basis that something might be automatic or guaranteed. I don't see how anyone would be able to guarantee anything under these circumstances. I wouldn't be able to guarantee anything to anyone.

I agree wholeheartedly with Matthew's warning and sentiment on this. Anyone engaging with you and your business who is selling this service and making sweeping guarantee's over their capacity to open doors should be treated with suspicion.

Just remember, if they are doing this to you then they are doing it to other people and therefore making you the product for someone else!