Being intentional is getting very clear about where you put your time in order to help you advance a goal you have. So many times, a day gets away from us and we just spend our time doing things we're not even sure about. Kim Bohr, CEO of The Innovare Group, Inc., a boutique strategic organizational consultancy, joins us to talk about intentional networking. Realizing how many people do not tap into their network until they absolutely need it was what made Kim come up with her platform. She says the idea of intentional networking is to look at the goals you want to have and start to plan how to build contacts into your network now when you don't need it so that you can reap the benefits when you want to tap into it.

Listen to the podcast here:

 

Intentional Networking with Kim Bohr

We are here with the fabulous, Kim Bohr. She is amazing at intentional networking. She is going to be sharing her tips and tricks with us. Kim, welcome to our show.

I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Tell us a little bit about what you do and what is intentional networking? You said strategy. I was impressed just by that.

What I do is I have a boutique strategic consultancy and we focus on helping organizations and leaders get through all the overwhelming pieces of their decision-making and help them to scale and grow. One of the tactical ways we do that is through this lens of intentional networking for strategic advancement. It's getting very clear and intentional about where you put your time in order to help you advance a goal you have. That goal might be within your business or it might be to get new clients. It might be areas that you know you want to grow in your career, you want to get on a board, things like that. It's about taking the time to plan and be very thoughtful about where you're going to put that time as you move forward.

There are so many times a day gets away from us and we spend our time doing things we're not even sure what. How did you come up with this plan?

It was based on over the years, even for myself personally, realizing that many people do not tap into their network until they absolutely need it. It might be when they've just hit the dead end of a job and they become very frustrated. They realize their business isn't growing in the way they would like it to be. What ends up happening is we start to go move into more of a panic and move into trying to tap a network that we haven't been nurturing. It doesn't have the right mix that it needs to for the goals that we have set. The idea of intentional networking is to say, “Let's look at what the goals are that you want to have, and they can be multiple. Let's start to plan how you build those contacts into that network now when you don't need it so that you can reap the benefits when you want to tap into it.”

I love what you said, “Nurture the network,” because that sounds like so many people start a business and then they're like, “Come, Kim. Come to me.” If you haven't nurtured the client, if you haven't given them something first, why would they? I always say it's like asking for sex on the first date.

The idea of this intentional networking is not one-sided. The idea is that it's meant to be able to enrich relationships and be there and be a resource for other people when they need your expertise as well. Becoming more intentional allows us to be more in service to others. That's missing in a lot of networking and a bounding component of what I've created here.

 

What is one tip that someone could do to nurture a network or be more intentional? Let's say they're starting a business. They have a ton of friends and family,