Networker's Maxim: Remember the Work

Scott Morgan staff writer for U.S. 1 interviewed Adam J. Kovitz for the November 7th edition.

Here' s a reprint of the article...

Networker's Maxim: Remember the Work

Adam Kovitz, by anyone's definition, is a smart man - an actual rocket scientist-turned-networking guru who almost single-handedly has accepted the responsibility of dragging some very tired old networking cliches into the 21st century. Simply "working the room" and collecting business cards and seeing old friends at the chamber of commerce meeting is no longer good enough. Networking today requires an investment.

The currency? Relationships.

"People aren't irrelevant," the 38-year-old Kovitz says from his suburban Philadelphia office. "Everything we want to achieve in this world has to be based on relationships to other people."

Those relationships, in turn, become what Kovitz refers to as "a constantly evolving portfolio of assets;" a living, breathing network of mutually beneficial relationships that, regardless of your business, make up what Kovitz considers the most important single measure of success - relationship capital.

"Financial capital is merely a reflection of relationship capital," he says. "You can't measure wealth without measuring relationships." He will describe ways to accumulate such a portfolio of business assets at a breakfast seminar entitled "Networking to Grow Your Business" for the Princeton Regional Chamber on Wednesday, November 14, at 7:30 a.m. at the Nassau Club, 6 Mercer Street. Cost: $30. Call 609-924-1776 (www.princetonchamber.org).

Another networking seminar in this time period will be on Monday, November 12, at 6 p.m. at Raritan Valley Community College's College Center in North Branch. Giulio Padovani will speak on "Networking Success." The event is free by registration. Call 908-526-1200, ext. 8934.

At his seminar Kovitz will delve less into the airy concepts of human relationships and more into the nuts and bolts of effective networking. For example:

Building a networking inventory, through which you know who your strongest assets are.

Ranking business relationships to find who are the most and least beneficial - and then finding ways to strengthen the weak spots.

Recognizing the tit for tat factor. Productive business relationships go both ways. If you can help someone else, that person can help you. This can be as simple as asking yourself, "Do I have a business that complements another?" A contractor who knows a real estate agent is in a good position to build a lasting relationship.

"It takes a certain psychology," Kovitz says, "certain `soft skills.' Most people would rather socialize, but they have to learn to use each other (as assets) to do business."

This, of course, takes work, and Kovitz makes no attempt to hide the second half of word "networking." Citing an increasingly popular refrain within the networking industry, Kovitz says, "It's not net-sitting; it's not net-eating. It's net-working."

And networking, he says, should not be viewed as yet another thing to take care of, but as an essential - indeed, the most essential - aspect of a business' operation.

"Networking is the way you build your business," he says, relating it to someone starting a new job. On the first day of work, he says, a new employee needs to know who to turn to in any situation - who is giving the work, who will be receiving the work and who takes care of trouble when it brews.

"That's all a network," he says. "It's working to figure all that out."

Kovitz's perspectives (and his growing success in the networking industry) are a combination of experience, hard work, book smarts, and heredity. After graduating from Penn State University with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1992, Kovitz, quite literally, shot for the stars. Working in jet propulsion and rocket science for General Electric in his hometown of East Windsor and for the U.S. Navy, Kovitz says he quickly developed a sense of how large organizations - like rockets - are comprised of very small parts.

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Networker's Maxim: Remember the Work