Gary T. Hartfield is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, author, philanthropist and founder of Serenity Village Insurance & Consulting.
Social capital is the intangible resources embedded within interpersonal relationships or social institutions. While social capital may seem simple to identify, it can be challenging to conceptualize its strategic application. How can you discover your organization’s needs to apply social capital properly? To effectively do so, one must understand their business type, locate a desired outcome and know their current connections.
Evaluate your business.
The ability to clearly state the functions of your business and how this relates to others is a vital first step in uncovering best practices for applying social capital. For a nonprofit, leveraging social capital may appear different than leveraging social capital for a Fortune 500 company.
Start with outlining the needs of your business. Are you running a large business? Or do you have a modest capacity lacking the bandwidth for additional clients or consumers? Make sure you and your team are able to identify and articulate your current business needs; this will serve you well as you utilize social capital to address these needs.
Here are some things to ask yourself when assessing your business:
• The overall goal of your business: What are three key outcomes that would deem your business successful?
• Your team: How large is your team? What is your capacity for clients? And what makes each team member important to overall success?
• Business success: How does business success present itself in the next year, five years or ten years?
• Tools and resources: What tools and resources are you missing? Furthermore, what tools and resources can you offer to someone else?
Identify your desired outcome.
Once you clearly understand who you are, the next step is to uncover the most favorable outcome for leveraging your social capital. This step is pivotal in discovering your strategy for targeting and implementing social capital.
More often than not, I see social capital utilized during event planning and execution. You may reconnect with past groups or attendees to get the right audience to attend your event. While our first goal may be to get attendees in the door, the next step should be to nurture each connection long after the event to increase the value of those relationships.
While your personal outcomes may be top-of-mind, it is vital to prioritize maintaining relationships to avoid draining your social capital pool. Make sure your connections maintain a genuine nature to ensure interactions are not solely transactional. Even upon gaining the desired outcome, continue nurturing relationships to ensure they are mutually beneficial for years.
Know your network.
Knowing and understanding the skills of your network can save time, money and obstacles for many parties. When a friend says, “I need a new mechanic,” you will likely recommend your most reliable source. This thought process should be similar to how you view social capital in correlation to your business.
The best way to know your network is to keep them organized and communicate with them often. Keep an ongoing tab on big projects or updates in your network through emails, social media or in-person meetings. With a keen and current understanding, you can better leverage your social capital to place individuals in critical conversations, events or impactful positions.
Here are a few ways to keep your social capital connections fresh.
• Connect on social: Social media allows us to monitor our peers’ achievements constantly. Connect with others on social media, like LinkedIn, to stay updated on personal and professional advances.
• Pick up the phone: Nothing beats an old-fashioned phone call. Occasionally, consider giving an old connection a ring to catch up on the latest news in their life.
• Meet in person: Grabbing lunch or a coffee is the perfect way to catch up with connections casually. Carve out some time to meet with connections at least a few times a year.
Tapping into social capital may be strategic; however, nothing beats genuine connections. While it takes time and consistent effort to maintain authentic relationships effectively, you could reach a point when social capital may be the most valuable asset in your toolbox. When you understand who you are, what you would like to accomplish and how your network can support you, social capital is a pivotal tool.
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