Plant corn seeds in the spring, harvest in the fall. The fruits of you labor take time, and it's worth it when you finally get to eat the corn (Jersey corn!). And all through the summer you add water and tend to the weeds. Networking is farming. It's planting seeds and harvesting, sometimes days later, sometimes years.

Two stories of networking success that took time to harvest, one relates to me.

The first story is about someone that I have written about in the past, Deborah, a citizen of Singapore.

Time has faded how I actually started to mentor her, perhaps from this very blog. During the past years I have reviewed her writing (thesis) and resumes and given her support and advice. The cultural difference between S'pore and the United States made much of my advice not much help.

Then while having lunch with another "networking" friend in NYC, an opportunity presented itself. My friend in NYC needed a Far-East telecom industry market research . And the light bulb went off - Deb's thesis is on a Telecom subject, her speciality is market research and she is located in the Far East. And now with a lil luck Deb will be writing a market research report for my friend in NYC...

Way back when this blog was started (2002) I was migrating back from Atlanta and, through networking met the owner of a Marketing Agency.

We spoke frequently and the possibility of a consulting project was taking root. However, I signed on with a different agency, one focused on online marketing, and thus began my new career. It seemed that every 6 month there was a reason to keep in contact with Eric, the owner of the marketing agency. Then, on January 1st 2006, I signed on with Eric's company as VP Online Marketing. Employment was not something we ever spoke about until late in November...

It may take time to harvest business networking corn, but it is well worth it when it happens. Keep your business network well fed and your harvest will be bountiful.

Pass the another ear of (Jersey) corn please.