From the Making Conversations Count archive

Your Network Only Works When You Activate It

What my conversation with Dr Ivan Misner taught me about relationships, intuition and why the real value of a network is what happens between the people in it.

TL;DR: Having a network isn't the same as having relationships. When Dr Ivan Misner joined me on Making Conversations Count, we talked about what happens when people actually activate the relationships around them, why networking is something we learn rather than instinctively know how to do, and the seemingly ordinary conversation that changed the direction of his career. Looking back, I think the most important lesson is this: the value of a network isn't how many people are in it. It's what those people are prepared to do for, with and because of one another.

What happens when you actually need your network?

When Ivan Misner joined me on Making Conversations Count, we were living through an extraordinary period. It was 2021. Businesses had closed. People were frightened. Work had disappeared. Plans had been ripped up. And almost overnight, the relationships around us had become much more visible, not our follower counts, not how many business cards we'd collected, but the people we could actually call.

Ivan put it beautifully: "Your network is a beacon of hope in a sea of fear." That landed with me because I'd just experienced it. My own business had effectively closed overnight. My husband couldn't understand why I kept disappearing upstairs to work when there appeared to be very little work left to do. What was I doing? Talking to people. And those conversations changed things.

The conversations compounded

I told Ivan that the conversations I'd had at the beginning of the crisis had compounded. I hadn't known what they would produce when I was having them. But out of that period came a transition in my business, my book, this podcast, new relationships, and a network that became a safety net. I could ask for help. But equally importantly, I could help other people. That distinction matters, because a useful network isn't simply a collection of people you can call when you need something, relationships move in both directions, and Ivan had spent decades studying precisely what happens when people understand that.

A network doesn't activate itself

Ivan's advice during that period was deceptively simple: activate your network. Sit down and have conversations with people. Not sell to them. Not work your way through the contacts list looking for prospects. Talk.

He gave me the example of a woman running a furniture reupholstery business in America. Covid had effectively shut the business down and she'd had to let her employees go. During a one-to-one conversation, somebody made an almost throwaway observation: you've got a lot of cloth, haven't you? She had tons of it. Had she thought about making masks? She hadn't. That one conversation gave her an idea she couldn't see from where she was standing. She started producing masks. Demand followed. And she was able to bring her workforce back.

Ivan told me a similar story about a brewery in Australia. The brewery couldn't operate normally. Someone asked another apparently simple question: you've got a lot of alcohol, haven't you? Hand sanitiser. Another conversation. Another possibility. That's what interests me, neither conversation began with somebody arriving with the answer. The answer emerged because two people brought different perspectives to the same problem. Sometimes the value of a conversation is that somebody else can see what you can't.

Relationships create options

That's something I understand even more clearly now. We often talk about networking as though its commercial value can be measured by what comes directly from the person in front of us. Did they buy? Did they refer? Did they book a meeting? Did we get an opportunity? But relationships create something much less predictable: options. An idea. An introduction. A recommendation. A different perspective. Someone who knows something you don't. Someone who knows someone you don't. Someone who asks the question that changes how you're looking at the problem. You cannot necessarily forecast which relationship will produce which opportunity, that's precisely why treating everybody in your network according to their immediate commercial value is such a poor strategy.

Networking is something we learn

One of my favourite exchanges with Ivan came when we started talking about younger people. I suggested that a generation accustomed to communicating through screens might find approaching strangers and having face-to-face conversations harder. Ivan challenged me. Quite rightly. He'd started his business at 28, and he told me: he hadn't known how to network either. He'd effectively method acted his way through learning it.

That made me realise I'd done something remarkably similar. My education had involved market stalls. I'd watch the characters who could attract a crowd, how they got people's attention, the nuances, how they spoke, how people responded, how people wanted to be treated. I'd observe what worked and adopt bits of it myself. Different generations, different classrooms, same process. We learn how to communicate by communicating.

And I think that's important, because we sometimes talk about people as naturally good networkers or naturally good conversationalists. There are certainly personalities that find parts of it easier. But much of this is learned behaviour, we observe, try, get it wrong, adjust, become more comfortable, and eventually develop our own way of doing it.

The conversation that counted started with a no

When I asked Ivan for the pivotal conversation in his career, he called it his "Brody moment", his "We're going to need a bigger boat" moment. It began in 1985. Ivan was a business consultant and had created his first networking group. A woman wanted to join, but couldn't, so she asked him a question: would you help me open another one? Ivan said no. That wasn't his business. He was a consultant. He didn't run networking groups.

And she challenged the distinction. If he helped her build something that would help her build her business, wasn't that a form of consulting? Ivan's head was telling him not to do it. But something else was nagging at him, his intuition. So he changed his answer. He said yes. That apparently small conversation changed the direction of his career.

You don't always recognise the pivotal conversation while you're having it

I love that story because there's nothing particularly dramatic about the conversation itself. Nobody presented Ivan with a grand vision of what his future could become. There wasn't a strategic plan for an international organisation. A woman had a problem. She asked for help. Ivan initially declined. She helped him see the request differently. And he reconsidered. That's it. The significance came afterwards.

And perhaps that's why these stories fascinate me so much. We tend to recognise pivotal conversations with hindsight. At the time, they can feel completely ordinary, a question, a suggestion, an introduction, a challenge. What if...? Have you thought about...? Could you help me...? Sometimes the smallest conversation changes the direction of what comes next.

His instinct became a body of work

What interests me about Ivan isn't simply what grew from that original decision. It's that he became a student of why relationships work. He researched networking academically. He wrote about it. Tested ideas. Developed them. And kept writing.

When we spoke, we talked about his earliest work and how some of the thinking he'd developed decades before was still relevant. That particularly interested me because my own foundations go back to my first formal sales training in 1988. Methods change. Technology changes. Platforms certainly change. But human beings have an irritating habit of remaining human. Ivan's books have explored networking, referrals, giving, relationships and the people we choose to surround ourselves with from numerous different angles, and one of those ideas had particularly lodged itself in my head before we spoke.

Who's in your room?

Ivan asked me to imagine something. You live your entire life in one room. There's one door, and it's enter only. Anybody you allow through that door stays forever. Would you be more selective about who you let in? Obviously, yes.

Then Ivan turned the metaphor around. The room is your mind. Think about someone you've deliberately removed from your life, someone difficult, someone who hurt you, someone you absolutely do not want back. Can you remember what they did? Can you hear something they said? Then they're still in the room. As Ivan put it, the people who've entered our lives leave fingerprints on our brains.

I still think that's a fascinating way of looking at relationships. Because the people around us don't merely create business opportunities. They influence us. Challenge us. Encourage us. Introduce ideas. Alter our confidence. Change what we believe is possible. Which makes who we allow around us rather more important than how impressive the number beside connections happens to be.

Bigger isn't necessarily better

This is where my own thinking about networks has continued to develop. A large network can be incredibly useful, I have one myself. But size isn't the same as depth, and access isn't the same as relationship. You can know hundreds or thousands of people and still have very few you would actually call when something goes wrong. Equally, you can have a relatively small number of people around you who will challenge your thinking, make introductions, share opportunities and tell you to pull your socks up when you're having a wobble.

I told Ivan that I'd done exactly that on the morning we recorded. I'd reached out to somebody I trusted, and she gave me a strong talking to. I described my network as being like family. That isn't something you get by exchanging contact details. It takes time. Repeated conversation. Understanding. Reciprocity. Trust.

Why this conversation still counts

I've spent even more time thinking about networking since that conversation with Ivan. I've moved hundreds of miles. Walked into rooms where I didn't know anybody. Built new relationships. Created my own rooms. And learned a great deal about what makes people feel comfortable enough to start talking to one another.

What I believe more strongly now is that being in a network isn't the same as having a network working around you. The value doesn't sit in the membership list, the WhatsApp group, the online community, the event ticket, the LinkedIn connection. Those things create access. Conversation activates it. And what happens afterwards determines whether it becomes a relationship.

Networking isn't networking if nothing follows it

That's why this conversation connects directly to a future Konpasu Paper: Networking Isn't Networking If Nothing Follows It. Because attendance isn't the outcome. Neither is an introduction. Nor a connection. Nor a business card. Nor a lovely morning drinking coffee with thirty other business owners. Something has to move.

Perhaps you continue the conversation. Perhaps you make an introduction. Perhaps you arrange a one-to-one because you've already discovered there's something worth discussing. Perhaps you recommend them six months later. Perhaps they ask the question that helps you see your own business differently. That's when the network starts doing something, and it doesn't have to result immediately in revenue to be commercially valuable. Sometimes it creates an idea. Sometimes confidence. Sometimes support. Sometimes an opportunity. Sometimes it simply creates another conversation. And you never quite know where that might lead.

Ivan's work continues

Decades after the conversation that changed the direction of his career, Dr Ivan Misner continues to write and speak about networking, relationships and social capital. His extensive catalogue of books includes The World's Best Known Marketing Secret, Infinite Giving and Who's in Your Room? What I appreciate when revisiting our conversation isn't simply the scale of what followed that decision in 1985, it's the thinking behind it. Relationships need investment. Networks need activation. Giving matters. Who we surround ourselves with matters. And conversations can create possibilities neither person could see before they started talking. That still feels extraordinarily relevant.