Your Network is Your Net Worth

Have you ever heard this before? Your network is your net worth. It's something that I find people say quite a lot but it always seems a bit of a weird one. I've always thought surely the things you own is how to figure out your net worth so what are they going on about? Recently I've started to realise that actually the people that say these kinds of things may well be on to something!  

Why is Your Network so Important?

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The definition of a network is a group or system of interconnected people or things. What I am talking about in this post is all about the people you are connected to. I recently heard a story about a man from Malaysia who managed to raise 10 billion dollars from Goldman Sachs. Later $5 billion disappeared... I wonder where that went!! This guy called Jho Low had connections to rich Arab families from his university days in Whorton. He was naturally a great networker and realised how other people could help him but apparently was very good at showing them how he could help them. He managed to keep putting himself between people until he ended up becoming an international financier. This is when he managed to use Goldman Sachs to raise extraordinary amounts of funds from investors. I'm sure this will become a film in the future but you can read the book "Billion Dollar Whale" here. It's important to remember that we are now in the information age. There are a different set of rules compared to the industrial age. It's more important than anything else that we have good connections and have meaningful relationships with people if we want to be able to live the lifestyle we dream of and achieve the things we'd like to in life.  

How to Build Your Network

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Social Media This is the main way to build your network in the information age. It's never been easier to join a "community" of like-minded people by just searching for a group on Facebook! The key here is to actually engage though. If you join hundreds of affiliate marketing groups and then never read or write anything useful in them, then you have wasted your time joining them. But how do you find out who is genuine and who are novices? Simple!! Ask questions. I used to set myself small targets of posting or commenting on one post a day in certain groups. Just doing this for a month you will see who regularly engages in the community. The key now is to filter out the people that are either too negative or don't really know what they are talking about. Sending these people a private message to ask about something in more detail can really help to start building that relationship. However, the relationship doesn't really start until you make time for them either on a phone/ skype call or ideally meeting up with them in person. I live in Qatar and I still regularly speak to great people that live in the UK using the power of the Internet! Personal Brand You may have heard people like Gary V or Rob Moore saying things like:

Build your own personal brand!

This is really just an extension of social media. This is something that I found particularly hard to understand initially (and still do find it a bit weird!) But you are missing out on so much potential if you don't do this! Just put yourself out there on videos and social media and people will start to feel like they get to know you. You don't need to spend additional time doing this, just document your own life. People will be interested in certain things that you do and you're building trust with all the people that follow you in one go. Don't pretend to be someone you're not because this is so obvious, just be yourself. Seminars or Courses There are loads of free seminars for all sorts of things all over the world. Sarah and I went on some property courses in the UK. We went to some free ones and even here you get to meet like-minded people in the same room. You don't have to be really extraverted or weird to make a connection it's easy enough just to talk to the person sitting next to you and learn a bit about them. Meetups We went to free property meetups every month and have recently found a meet up in Qatar. These are great ways to meet people that are often doing something similar to you or something you would like to do. It's also great to get different people's points of view particularly if you have a problem that you are trying to solve. Read This is one of the easiest ways to "rub shoulders" with some of the world's greats. If you'd like to learn from Elon Musk, read his autobiography! If you'd like to know how to start numerous successful businesses, then read about Richard Branson. This is one of the ways that you can find out invaluable information from some of the most successful people in the world by just reading a few pages of a book each day. Be Consistent The main thing for any of these networking methods is to be consistent. If you are all over a facebook group for one day and then don't look at it for the next month, people will not remember you. If you attend a meetup once it's very hard to make any meaningful relationships within a few hours. You must be consistent and stay in touch with people that you speak to. If you want to learn more by reading it needs to become a habit, not just something that happens for 2 weeks each year on holiday.  

The Number of People That You Know Isn't Important

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It's not about getting thousands of followers on any social network. It's about making meaningful and good relationships with certain people. The key here is to decide who you would like to spend your time on. There are so many people on social media that it's impossible to make meaningful connections with all of them. However, when you find someone like-minded and you believe you can learn something from then (but also contribute to their life) then it's important to foster this relationship! Quality over Quantity It's way more important to have good contacts over loads of average ones. For example, if your best mate was Richard Branson I'm sure you could find a way to fund your new business idea providing you can show him how it would work. You could also probably get some support in ensuring it was a good idea in the first place. It's also important to realise how connected you are to these people. If you would like to gain experience from someone but you only speak to them once then you won't get anywhere. Equally, if you speak to someone that you think you could help out or put them in contact with someone else that could help them then do it! These relationships are a two-way street!    

How Does This Relate to Affiliate Marketing

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It's more important than anything else Something that I am starting to learn about when using affiliate marketing is that it doesn't matter how much content you create. Or how much time you spend on your website. Or how often you comment back to people that visit your website. None of this matters if nobody reads your stuff! You're not making a difference to anybody else or adding any value so you will not get anybody to click your affiliate links let alone use them! Having a good network around you helps to stay realistic, know what to expect and leverage other people's networks to grow your own. Learn from their mistakes Many people have mentors exactly for this reason. It's much better to speak to people who have already done what you are trying to achieve than trying to figure it all out by yourself. You can learn from other peoples mistakes rather than having to make all the mistakes by yourself (you still will make mistakes, but as long as you learn you will never lose!) This is something that Wealthy Affiliates are great for! The community is so helpful and there are people that you can speak to who have been through what you have but have come out the other side. There are also people in the community who are earning more money through their website than you ever imagined possible! Click here to find out more.  

The Make Time Online Summary

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As you can see your network is worth a lot more to you than what most people think. It's easy to be caught up in your own busy life but unless you are nurturing and building relationships with the type of people that you would like to learn from or be like, you will never change. There is no excuse to not build your network and particularly develop some great relationships with people that are doing what you'd like to be doing. Social media makes this super easy in today's world and if you're not using any platforms you're missing out on ways to instantly change your life for the better. If you have any ways that helps you to build your network please let me know in the comments below! Keep changing for the better, Mike   If you are interested in making money online to free up your time, have a look at my #1 recommended program here.