Hopping out of a taxi after battling late-afternoon Auckland traffic, Jon Burgess looks like a walking advertisement for the about-town businessman. In fact, he is. I later learn the dapper Burgess is an ‘ambassador’ for the elite men’s clothing label Henry Bucks and has similar relationships with luxury pen maker Montblanc and premier watch retailer The Hour Glass.

The 39-year-old professional networker has no qualms about being so commercial — he thinks of it as connecting. He’s had companies buy Montblanc pens as corporate gifts because they’ve seen him using one. That’s the essence of his groundbreaking networking philosophy: that there are business opportunities everywhere from everyone you meet.

But being commercial doesn’t mean he’s all slick and no substance. His philosophy is based around a smile, good old-fashioned manners and his mantra: “Who matters? Everyone matters.” He reckons most networking gurus teach people how to be predatory and transactional based — to get as close as you can to the guy at the top and try to sell him something. It’s all about take rather than give.

In 2002, after spending 15 years in business development in the printing industry, Burgess thought to himself there had to be a better way.

His epiphany actually happened long before that. Burgess dreamed of being a soccer star. Aged just 15, he went to live in England to try out for West Ham United. On his first day on the streets of East London he met a skinhead named Dennis, which he now describes as “the most important meeting of my life”. At the time he was worried it would be his last.

Burgess recalls he was kicking a soccer ball around and the skinhead shouted at him, “Oi! What the fuck are you doing in my area?” Burgess froze and then replied meekly he was there to play for West Ham. Luckily it was the skinhead’s team. He taught Burgess two important lessons. “He said, ‘Oz, remember your manners and get to know as many people as you possibly can’.” The skinhead then introduced Burgess to everyone in the local pub, saying, “This is Oz. He’s okay.” After that he never had any problems on the streets. It was his first lesson in networking.

Burgess started his company, Kwan, three years ago, initially doing sales coaching. But he moved into networking after conceiving the idea for the Invisible Network. It’s a pragmatic approach based on everyday connections. Burgess starts every relationship by asking “how can I help you?”

The idea came after spending two years being mentored by self-made -millionaire John Ilhan, the richest man under 40 in Australia. One day Ilhan said everywhere he went people were trying to get close to him to get something off him, whereas Burgess had simply provided connections and information of use to him whenever he could. Ilhan then asked “What can I do for you?”

“I thought then I had uncovered something revolutionary. He’s never going to buy a product from me but he can influence people that will. He can connect me at a level I’d never get to on my own.”
Burgess developed that thought into a how-to programme coaching corporates on networking, which he’s taken to heavyweights such as Westpac Private Bank, Deloitte and the Enterpreneurs’ Organisation.

Marina Stuart, a partner with Deloitte in Australia, says the firm engaged Burgess to run several workshops through to 2007 because his approach is so different to traditional networking and could give staff an edge over their competitors. “This is more than just the top-ten tips. This is about changing people’s behaviours and mindset over time rather than waltzing into a seminar and instantly becoming an expert networker.”

The theory is you get business from your visible networks — your existing clients and marketing activities. But what about the other people you meet every day, many of whom offer opportunities to help you in your business providing you can activate them to do so? They are your invisible network.
The payback, as Burgess found with Ilhan, can come some months or even years down the track — the average is six to 18 months, he says. Included in Burgess’s own network (and who also now sit on his company’s advisory board) are Ilhan of Crazy John’s, Village Roadshow chairman Robert Kirby, Entrepreneurs’ Organisation regional director Carlo Santoro, and founder of sports agency Grand Slam International David Flaskas (who Burgess still works for part time).

“I’ve not come from the traditional background of accessing people in the boardroom. Normally, to access the people I do you have to either have money or profile but the invisible network makes the difference,” Burgess says.

In New Zealand, staff at recruitment firm Salt have tried the networking programme. Director Jacqui Barratt says it has already paid off. She made a shortlist of high-profile people she’d like to get closer to and seized an opportunity to approach one of them at a recent awards event. “I know I wouldn’t have had the right approach to have that discussion before so this [the invisible network] gives structure and focus to make a targeted approach.”

As Burgess says, trying to create fake relationships with high-profile people won’t work.
“My approach is very much how to access these people. There are opportunities from everyone you meet.”