Madison Realtor

 What Size Catch Do You Want?

The men had been fishing all day; casting the huge nets into the sea to no avail. They were tired, disgusted, and thoroughly irritated. Fishing, was of course, their main source of revenue; so a day without much of a catch was horrendous.

Jesus came along and after some dialogue with his friends, instructed them to cast their nets in a different area of the sea. To their utter amazement, the net was so full they could barely pull it into the boat. Their irritation and disgust turned to joy and I’m sure – great relief!

As I mentally prepared for a daily blog post on building community and networking, this story came to mind. It’s no accident that we call getting together help each other – whether in business or professional life, or for the simple pleasure that being with others brings – “networking”. It truly is “working our nets”!

I want to offer a disclaimer that I’m in no way downgrading the opportunities that exist when women join one or more ‘face to face’ networking organizations. I belong to more than one and find them beneficial. But in reality I’m just casting my net into a pond – not the SEA! And there is a SEA out there, in which I can drop my net and gather a catch so full that I can barely pull it into my boat.

The ‘virtual world’ – the world brought to us by the world wide web – has dramatically changed how business is done! Businesses who the vision early on; took to this new medium and many have doubled; tripled, even quadrupled their growth AND profits. The www SEA offers us opportunities we would never have when bound geographically and physically.

The technology continues to get better. More and new platforms become available every day. I can literally get together with 5 women or 200 women sitting homes or offices around the country – around the world – and connect, communicate and ‘work my net’. They can work their nets, as well.

And it doesn’t matter the reason we come together. It isn’t always about ‘doing business’! In fact, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be. If we are businesswomen, then we do want to end up with business growth, women are GREAT social networkers and when we build personal relationships with other women, the by-product of that relationship is often business-building for everyone.

I’m sure our AWP members and visitors could “read between the lines”. It takes both – both ‘fishing in the ponds’ and casting a wider net into a larger body of water – into a SEA of potential and possibilities. That’s the vision and mission of many organizations that taken their vision and mission to the virtual world. Just as our goal might be multiple streams of income - it also ought to be fishing or 'casting our nets' in multiple streams that hold increasingly greater opportunity.