Are You Building Social Capital?

Posted by Gediminas Grinevicius on Friday, January 10, 2020 Under: Personal Development

I want to share about building social capital. So social capital, what is social capital? And how do you build social capital?



Social capital is a lot like financial accounting capital, but many people don't understand it and they try to treat it differently. And they shouldn't. So financial capital, we understand how it works. So you putting money in, you're putting money and then you building up the capital and then that capital can give you like, dividends or interest. So if you're putting money in the bank, you can overtime, start earning your interest, and that's financial capital.

So, social capital is very similar to that as well and it's about the relationship building. So the way it works is that a lot of especially network marketing, especially in a home based business, your social network, your network of contacts, your community is extremely important because if you're going to build a huge business, it's all through contacts, through networking with people, but many people want to treat the social capital differently than how we treat financial capital. And actually, you can't do that.

With financial capital, it's pretty clear. If you didn't put any money in the bank, you can't withdraw anything. So if you didn't put any money in the bank, you can't withdraw anything, that's common sense. You wouldn't go to a bank and go, “Hey, can you give me some money?” And they go, “Well, you didn't put any money in.” It just wouldn't make any sense, but that's what people try to do in their social capital.

But that's how it works in social capital, people go, they want to take from people, they want people to do
favors for them, they want people to do things for them before they've invested in that relationship, before they have built that relationship. And spamming is the clear example of that, is where, you just mess with somebody and go, “Hey, join my business, hey, buy my product, here's the link.” It's like going to a bank and say, “Hey, give me some money. I didn't put any money in my bank account but please give me some money.” The bank would chase you out.

Well, that's what people do in social environment. You can't ask for something, you can't demand for something until you've invested into something. So you can't ask for favors from people, you can't ask for people to do things for you, you can't ask for people to join your business, you can't ask for people to buy your products before you've invested in that relationship, before you made that contact, before you got them to know you, to trust you and hopefully to like you.

There's a great book written by a guy called Harvey Mackay and the book's title is build your well, before you're thirsty. Build your well, before you're thirsty. Isn't it a wise title? Because so many people go, “I want water.” But they didn't build the well. They didn't spend the time doing that. They just go, “I want water. Give me water.” Well, you can't get it because you didn't freaking build a well, you didn't build a pipeline.

There are so many people who demand from the world, who demand from their contacts, who demand from social media things without putting anything in it at the beginning. I don't even know where I saw it, or who said it, but I love it when I first saw it, and it's still in my head and the quote or the ideology or the philosophy is leave every single person better off after they met you, than before they met you. Leave every single person that you meet in your life, better off, feeling better, feeling better about themselves, feeling better about the world feeling better, having a better mood, having a smile on the face, after they met you, then before they met you.


That's how you invest in your social capital, is by investing in people, investing good emotions in people, investing positivity in people, investing helping other people, investing supporting other people and it doesn't have to be money, it doesn't have to be you moving furniture for them, even though it could be. There's nothing wrong with doing that.

But sometimes, it's just a nice comment under that person's picture on Facebook. Sometimes it's just a Ha, ha, under the funny poster they shared. Sometimes it's just a compliment on the way they looked on their social media. Or maybe it's face to face; complimenting a person. You know, you go to that supermarket all the time and you shop there every day, and this lady is serving every day why not say to her, “Hey, you look fantastic today, hey, I really, really appreciate how you are in a great mood all the time and what fantastic service you do here.” People around you making people feel significant.

Imagine that every person that you ever meet whether face to face or on social media is wearing a board or wearing a sign on the chest and the sign is saying, “Make me feel important. Make me feel important.” How would you behave with that person? How would you treat that person? How would you communicate with that person? And not just the nice people around you, not just the family and friends. But the person who cuts you off in the road, the person who's rude in the shop, what if you had that idea in your head that I need to make everybody feel important. I need to leave everybody better off after they met me, than before they met me.

That's the investment into your social capital. If you become that person, if you become that person that supports everybody, that leaves everybody happy and better off. Guess what, you are accumulating a huge social capital. You are investing massive social capital then from which you can then draw, from which you can then ask for a favor, from which you can then expect the support? Does this make sense, guys? Is that clicking? Are you getting that aha moment? Are you getting that Penny drop? Because some of you, you be natural like that all of your life, you’re just being a great person, you just been supporting everybody helping everybody. You’re just generally a nice person. And for you, hey, I take my hat off. I love you.

But some of us, including me, have been a bit of a taker over a lifetime. We haven't been there for people as much as we could have. We haven't been really supporting people as we could have. Right? And then we go, “Oh now I need these people.” And these people go, “Oh now you need me?” So it's like in home based business, in network marketing, some people get rewarded for their past life, how they been treating people. And when these people join the business, people just go, “Oh, my gosh, I want to join your team, I want to join your business, because I've been waiting to pay you back for how great a friend you've been, for how great a person you've been.” And those people join the business and you see them go wash through the levels. And you say, “It’s unfair, why are they succeeding so fast and I’m not?” Because they've been working all of their life to accumulate this social capital.

Some of us, hey, we get punished for our previous life. Because we were not so supportive, because we didn't look after people, because we were not so positive around them, right? And then we join network marketing and we go, “Hey, I need you to join my team. I need you to do this for me.” “Now you need me.” So hey, and then for us, it's a bit slower. It takes a little bit more time to go from the head to the heart but it's not too late, hey, if you've been a taker, if you've been a user all of your life, it's not too late to change. You can change now. You know, they say there's a Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago. The next best time to plant the tree is today.

So you can always start changing today, you can start treating people differently. You can start being a nicer person, you can start being a more supportive person, a person that leaves people better off that they come across, and you do how do you do that? By investing in yourself, by growing yourself, by practicing gratitude by reading, listening, watching personal development, good people, read the autobiographies of amazing people in the world; the Gandhi's, the Nelson Mandela's, the Martin Luther King Junior's and so on of this world. That will turn you that will shift your psychology that will shift your philosophy to become a better person.

That’s my training and tip for you. Hope you got value some value in this blog post, if you did, feel free to share it with other people. If you would like more amazing trainings check out “Network Marketing Success Training” group http://titaniumsuccess.co.uk/successtraining.php. There are 10 amazing lessons in this training course that will help you get the breakthrough in your business!


Yours in success

Gediminas.


In : Personal Development 


Tags: relationship building to help build your business 
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