It is nice having a strong relationship with the person who referred you – as the referral is seen as a personal recommendation. Once you move along in the chain, the relationship is thin, but that does not mean you’re networking meeting is doomed. It’s only doomed if you overplay the depth of the relationship.
At almost every meeting, the question of how well I know the person who made the introduction is asked. I am straightforward; in fact, I give the entire chain of referrals.
The only comments I made that showed any type of ‘relationship’ with someone I had only met through networking was areas we had in common (colleagues, companies, etc.) and the number of referrals that they gave me.
I know overplaying your hand dooms the meeting. Here’s another mistake I made early on in my networking – so you don’t want to make the same one.
While I did not outright lie, I was not clear and it set a poor tone for a couple meetings. I used vague language regarding my relationship, figuring that the person I was meeting could ‘imagine’ what they like. What I think they imagined in that “this guy is a desperate job seeker or an idiot or both!”
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