“Just How Strong Is Our ‘CQ’ (Connectivity Quotient)?”

Ever heard of a connectivity or connection index or quotient? It doesn’t matter whether we have heard of it, know what it is, or have a high score. We very likely factor into the mix some place along the scale.

Depending on who we ask, there really is such a thing as a connectivity or connection quotient that has a quantitative value. For our purposes, we don’t need to worry about an actual number or how we would arrive at it. We are more concerned with what it represents.

There also is a definition of connection or connectivity quotient or index that measures or is concerned with how many gadgets we have and use that connect us to the outside world, such as phones and tablets. While this is not our concern – they merely are tools that we use to establish and maintain the connections that we do make with people – there definitely is value in being able to reach out to people this way.

Another type of connectivity that some people may be interested in as a part of this discussion involves our use of social media – some people more than others. Social media is a great way for us to make connections with people that we don’t know at the time but want to meet, potential clients, and potential strategic partners or referring professionals. There are many good social sites for doing this, but we are concerned with professional relationships rather than personal ones. Nevertheless, some of our personal relationships on social media may lead to referrals or work that we can do.

As to actual connections, that is what we need to be concerned about as we get ready to launch a new year. We don’t need to be concerned with trying to measure how strong our connection base is quantitatively and assigning a number of some sort to it. We do need to focus on establishing more connections than we have now and to have an actual plan for doing this.

In reflecting upon or evaluating how strong our connection index is, we need to look at the type of work we are doing and who we would like to include in our referral base to help us produce customers and clients. The more people we involve, the higher our index will be. This is not an absolute number, and there is no perfect score to try to achieve. it’s just a matter of using our resources and influence to reach out to both people that we already know and those we need to meet to begin stretching and strengthening our business.

We might be doing the actual construction work, we might be a health care professional, we could be designers, or we could sell or install durable medical equipment (including lifts, ramps, and elevators). We could have many other levels of expertise, professional affiliations, and titles that we use to promote and implement our aging in place solutions for our clients. From assessments to design to actual construction, we are going to need other professionals to work with us to create our solutions. We will need to have a way or meeting the potential clients where we will be creating the actual solutions.

Regardless of how well connected we feel we are currently with professionals that can help us create solutions or who can refer work to us, how much social media we might use, what professional organizations we may belong to or participate in, and the opportunities we have to meet people throughout our comings and goings, we need to be are of people around us whom we can potentially help and those who can lead to people we can serve.
This will strengthen and improve the amount of people we connect with, or our connectivity index.
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