“85% of your social & financial success in life is determined by your social & communication skills”– The Dale Carnegie Foundation.
When I first came across the quote above, I began to question the link between social skills and financial success – What’s the link? After hours of research and questioning the answers began to surface.
The reason why such a large percentage of your financial success is attributed to social skills is because for money to change hands from one person to another there must be human interaction. Consider some of the most common ways that money changes hands:
- Selling a product or service to customers
- Being paid by an employer
- Creating business deals with business partners
- Doing paid chores for a family member
- Receiving advertising revenue from advertisers to reach readers
All of the decisions above for money to move from one person to another require a person to make a decision to transfer that money. Improving your socials skills improves your ability to influence people’s decisions, and that can be the decision of an employer, a potential business partner, a customer, or even a family member.
The financial benefits of improving your social skills are vast and in many cases quite tenuous. However, here are some of the less tenuous ways that improved social skills impact your financial success:
- Meeting more new people increases the opportunities to make money, as you know more people. Being good at meeting people allows you to ‘select’ the type of person you meet, which could be people who can increase your earnings or help your business in some form or another. Having more opportunities does not make you rich, but acting on the best opportunities will bring you financial rewards, and the more people you know who offer you opportunities, the more selective you can be.
- Improved social skills make you more likeable. This increases the likelihood that people you meet or know already will help you succeed financially as your social skills will intensify your likeability.
- Increasing your social skills and meeting new people increases the size of your first and second tier networks, allowing you to reach a larger group of people with greater influence.
So how can investing in your social skills make you rich? Here are several ideas…
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Your social influence is valuable
The more people who you can reach and influence, the more valuable you become. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian get paid upwards of $10,000 simply because of the influence they have over such a large number of people. However, this is an extreme scenario – you don’t need to become a Z-list celebrity for your social influence to start making you money! Becoming influential in a niche or industry is perhaps more realistic and will open up more opportunities (allowing you to be more selective) within that niche.
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Communication skills are sought after by employers
A survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers asking 1,000 employers what the most important skills for a job candidate were found that of over communication skills were by far the most important. Having good communication and social skills are fundamental for securing and being successful in a job interview, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
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Access to key people is valuable
On Linkedin I am connected to 226 people, who collectively have 75,400 contacts. That means that if I were to ask for an introduction from any of my 226 friends, my potential network of people who I could meet is 75,400. Imagine the value that some of those 75,400 people could add to your life. Being able to access key people who can add value to your life or your business is incredible valuable.
How Valuable is Meeting One Person a Day?
If you met just one new person a day, that’s 365 people a year. But it’s not the quantity that counts; it’s the depth of the relationship you build that’s important. Anybody can meet 365 people a year, but only people with great communication skills and social skills can turn 365 meetings into 365 deep and meaningful relationships.
Say, for example, you are promoting a new product called product X. By meeting these 365 people you can promote your product to 365 people (i.e. not very impressive). However, if you had built meaningful relationships, your friends may be more likely to share your product with their social circle, which based on Dunbar’s Number theory is likely to be around 150-200 people. You are then able to reach an audience of over 54,000 people, and if product X is really kick ass, those people may then share your product, too.
To put a number on it, lets say that product X is £10 and 2% of that audience purchase the product, meeting 1 person/day is worth £10,800 in sales.
This blog post was written by Marcus Taylor, co-author of the book Get Noticed and head of social media at SEOptimise.
