John Donne was the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1642.
He was a Clergyman and an English poet, but he had a famous quote from one of his sermons that has survived hundreds of years:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Now…
You might not be familiar with that entire quote, but I bet you are familiar with the idiom that is based on that quote…
“No man is an island…”
It’s survived hundreds of years and people still quote it today, probably because it’s true. The meaning?
Its point is that human beings are connected to each other and that connection is very important for the well-being and survival of any one of us.
It’s not so different on the internet though.
Although you CAN grow an online business without networking, it is extremely slow to do it. You can speed up your process dramatically, by networking with others in the same space as you.
Through doing interviews, speaking positively about your peers in your content, collaborating, etc. you can really build a network of allies that can help you grow much faster.
Online you will find that it is incredibly slow trying to grow on your own. Suffice it to say, no man is an island. Kind of funny to me that something someone said 380 years ago still matters to this day.
I guess as much as things seem to change, in many ways they don’t change much at all.
The bottom line here is that you will exponentially grow your business faster if you can make friends with your peers and network with others.
I’ll be back soon to talk with you a bit about social media and how you can use it to your advantage in marketing today. In the meantime, think about some ways you might be able to start building a network of peers.
Could you do an interview?
Could you do a piece of content that features another business in your market?
Could you reach out to someone privately and let them know that you really admire all their work, and offer your services to them if they ever need something you provide? Free of charge?
All of these things might be great icebreakers and nice ways to begin to build friendships and alliances with your peers.
Dominus Owen Markham
