Photo: debaird
If the lifeblood of business is relationships, how can an introvert succeed in business?
Being introverted doesn’t mean being weak at creating, nourishing, and sustaining relationships; being introverted just means not radiating a desire to interact with others in certain contexts. A more introverted person may initially shy away from sales and blogging, but there is more than one way to skin a cat (though I must say, that’s quite a saying when you reflect on it. What possessed people to think about skinning a cat, anyway!?), and “introverted” and “extraverted” are not pure categories but rather social constructions.
Even with the internet’s constraints, and most certainly in spite of the deafening voices out there insisting that social medium X or Web 2.0 technique Y is “what everybody’s doing,” there must be ways of building and enjoying two-way relationships online that the introvert-leaning type can excel in.
What are they? What are the tools of choice, or the “modes of choice” while using the tools available?
Suggestions and observations welcome from extraverts and introverts welcome!
I contend that extraversion and intraversion have less to do with what a person WANTS to do, and more to do with what they NEED to do. Rather than thinking of introverts as people who don’t like to interact with others, and extraverts as people who who do, I think of it this way…
Introverts are people who need privacy and introspection to recharge their internal energy. Extroverts are people who need to interact with others for their replenishment. Thinking of it that way makes it easier to acknowledge that introverts will sometimes (or often) enjoy or even excel at interacting with others, and extraverts can and do enjoy alone time… but what each of them needs on top of that is to find enough of what re-energizes them, either interaction or introspection.
Despite my growing appetite for interaction with others, I am still an introvert at heart. But I suspect nobody who has met me the last few years would ever guess that. I haven’t changed into an extravert, but simply honed that skill set and gained more interest in using it. However, I still desperately need my introversion time to refuel the furnaces.
I agree with Andy completely about the energy/recharge thing.
I have a physical shuddering reaction to words like marketing, sales, and networking. Yet as a consultant, I need to spend a lot of my day doing those very things. Social networking (Facebook and LinkedIn) are low-risk, since I don’t talk to anyone directly. But they don’t really lead anywhere useful–they’re more a way for potential clients to check up on me to see if I’m who I say I am.
Instead of thinking about marketing, then, I ask myself what is the best way to reach out to a particular person. I can offer to help them solve a problem, send along information I know will be interesting to them, follow up on how they are doing on a project we talked about six months ago, and the like. By the end of that conversation they are reminded that I exist and know what I might do for them in a way that feels natural and comfortable to me. I used to have to script every call I made like this, but I am getting better at it these days and just jot a few notes before I dial. I listen a lot. Often I send an email afterward with a quick answer or thanks.
By offering something, rather than asking for something, I feel I come across more confidently.
Still working on being able to introduce myself to strangers at conferences, etc. without a deal of pre- and post-squirming.