Title photo credit: Raul Petri on Unsplash

I met Heather White through her EWOB CLP session Personal Branding: Define and build your unique leadership style and brand. While she had many interesting points, I was particularly interested in the concept of the value that you can offer to your network. The idea isn’t just to collect names and connect on LinkedIn, but to understand how you can help each other.

I struggle with the typical idea of networking – but I can very much get behind giving back to my network as a way to help maintain it.

Heather noted four typical roles that you can take on to be of value to your network:

• Connector: you know a wide spectrum of people, are willing collect the right people, and then connect those people)
• Expert (you have a passion for subject or topic)
• Detector (you are a researcher, collect knowledge, information, ideas, share what you’ve learned, function as a signpost)
• Coach (you help others grow, are often available to chat and help others in the right direction)

Personally, I’m not an intentional collector. My network has grown mostly through others connecting with me. However, I can see elements of being an expert (I’m passionate about leadership, personal growth, productivity, etc), a detector (learn all the things and share them with others!) and a little bit of a coach (how can I help you out?).

I collect so much knowledge; I can do a much better job of sharing that with my network, especially if that knowledge might help someone else out.

How do you give back to your network?