THE 4CS OF NETWORKING

COMPETENCE, Credibility, Clarity, & Connectivity - these are the 4Cs necessary to develop a powerful personal network.

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When meeting a stranger you are likely to be asking yourself one or all of the following questions: Can I trust this person? What does he or she want? What are their intentions? Do they want something from me?

From a general interpersonal and social scenario, trust or trustworthiness is the first box that needs to be ticked off in our mind before we let someone into our world. I refer to this box as credibility. We assess a person's credibility above all else when interacting with others.

Only when credibility has been established would we then entertain evidence supporting one's level of competence. After all, what good is it to have someone around us who hasn't earned our trust? In the past and even today when interacting with others, competence is a skill while credibility is a reputation. The more we demonstrate competence and credibility, the more we build trust with someone.

Credibility and competence go hand in hand in business like they do in non-business social interaction, but there is an important distinction. In terms of business and referral passing, you can have competence without establishing credibility, but you can't have credibility without being competent. In the business context, competence trumps credibility—that's right, competence comes first!