It can be a really small world. So much so that it’s easy to realize that everything is inter-connected. So today we’re going to be talking about networking and how communities are much smaller than they appear.
This blog post is inspired by two different occurrences that are both connected to Dungeons & Dragons.
Now I’m running two different D&D games, a 5th Edition game on Wednesday and my normal 3.5 Edition on Saturday night, and there is a story connected to each but don’t actually have to do with the games themselves.
The earliest story comes in with the 5th Ed. game and our druid. A month or so ago there was a story about this massive con in a game where a player had convinced the party that he was an entirely different class and race and no one caught on until about three sessions in. It was an inspiring feat of role-playing and has helped me develop a number of characters and scenarios.
Strange thing was that the druid told us a story before we started a game about what he had done in another campaign he was in. And it was the same story. He had an unknown D&D celebrity playing in our game for before we found out.
Sometimes people we know or the people our people know are more accomplished than we think. This means we have to know our network better than we currently do so that we can either leverage help for others or ourselves.
This brings me to the next story. One of the players that is in both games referred a guy he knows to join the Saturday game. So he gives me the new player’s number to contact him and get things sorted out. Of course I ask for the guy’s name so it’s a little more personable. I also ask for his full name so I can put it into my phone contacts.
The name I was given was too familiar. I knew the name from where though? I dug out my old contact lists. And one of the first entries that I had in my contacts. An individual who I had not seen in almost ten years. Through a random set of occurrences, an old associate was brought to me by D&D.
For work this means old friends might pop up in your business contacts and the relationship you had before might be the basis for expanding your influence. So while you cannot keep every bridge unburned, you can be complimentary to other people and it could pay off in the long run if you find yourself in the same groups.
Society as a whole is an enclosed world. Break that world down into groups and you have an even smaller world. This is the basic concept of marketing to a particular market sector. You have so many potential clients and customers but sometimes you have to narrow it down to a few of them. That’s where having a specific target audiences comes in. That specific group is who you are going to be catering to and if what you’re selling is good it will spread through out that community.
The world continues to shrink but it opens more opportunities for those who are interested in finding a market for their goods. Keep this in mind as you step out into the world of selling.
Think about it.
Sincerely
The Irreverent Gentleman
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