When a competitor's business development efforts succeed, they're frequently dismissed with "it's who they knew, not what they knew" while we tend to attribute our own wins to substantive knowledge rather than connections or networks.
So, which is more important: what you know, or who you know, and why ?
Both are important and intertwined in many market segments.
For example, in transactions around the private equity sector, expert professional service business involves both substantively knowing, plus knowing who's who. In rare and esoteric areas, substantive knowledge and skills base is key. Regular, day-to-day work for many professionals, plus market connections in the ascendency since core expertise is plentiful.
It's too easy to underestimate the importance of both and to diminish the complex interconnections between what you know and who you know.
What you know creates a base of expertise. From this foundation you apply expertise in commercial situations. From those situations you derive a contact base of people and organisations with whom you have repeat professional and business dealings. From that contact base you can derive increased knowledge. And so it continues…
The answer is that both are important.
By effectively putting "what you know" to work, you will create and expand "who you know" - all in a virtuous cycle.
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