There’s an age old saying that says, “It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know”. This saying can’t be any more relevant than in today’s workforce. Many jobs are not accepting random applications online, but they would rather accept people with connections and trusted acquaintances that put in a good word for the hire in question. It’s always important to have connections with people around the world and in your immediate area.
In fact, connections are what saved my business and pushed me forward in my career years ago. When my team and I were working on networking towards the beginning days of my business, SOHDental, we had to find people to help build with us. We were starting from nothing, so we needed to make connections and network ourselves as fast as possible while we had the opportunity. The best part is that often we chased leads that were from people we knew and trusted, who were suggesting where to look at whatever times we needed. We would find people who know people, then they would trust someone else, and we’d chase that lead. We did this for a while and built ourselves up slowly but surely.
When we built up our connections, we started looking into buildings and setting up a plan to hire people for the offices based on their size and potential. We would gauge the potential of the buildings we looked into and what our budget would be. This part of the process was a good example of why it’s good to have people to rely on because we had many options but had to choose carefully due to being on a budget. We wanted to be wise with our money and had to pick the right areas that needed us as well. Any unnecessary or unwise move could have cost our company a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.
We were also not only focused on current connections and relationships with our network, but we wanted to collaborate with other businesses to help provide opportunities for them to train and build up their doctors as well. We wanted to focus on our long-term goals as well as bringing our short-term goals to life.
I remember when I was writing my book about how I realized a very similar comparison to represent how we treat our relationships in my company, it’s like a marriage. We want to be joined by these people and their companies and have a fruitful and committed partnership with them throughout our career. It was a hilarious comparison I came up with, but I really can’t describe it any better way.
Once we started growing more and more with increasing practices joining our side and helping us grow and provide income, we started a process that led us to achieving the goal of twenty-seven offices in six different states. We grew faster than I expected but at a steady pace where we could refine our practices and truly hone our skills as a company. During the time of covid-19, it really did push us as well to lock it in and protect our values and company, and when we did that, we came out of that season as a fully developed business with over 1 million dollars in our revenue. Our practices have helped so many doctors and other businesses, it truly is a dream come true for me.
During our upcoming we also learned how to really handle customers and train our doctors to the best of our ability. SOHDental not only gets to practice dental work, but we also expanded our horizons recently to even more medical procedures. We included orthodontics, pedodontics, and other practices into our training as well. And all this was possible because we knew people, who knew people, who knew people, who knew people.
I think I made my point that connections are important in business. However, I know that beyond that connections are important for everyday life. Connections help you in mental trouble, financial difficulties, and so much more. Having people that you know not just in your immediate area, but around the world, can save you in times of trouble, or open up new opportunities in the future that you can’t see yet.
Your future is just as big a concern as your present. So with that in mind, stay connected to people, and stay connected to the outside world, you might learn a thing or two yourself as well.
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