Social Capital Mentor

In my last post, I talked about Carolyn Davis’ social skills. One of the reasons we hired her to cater our party was because she’s great with people; she’s got great social skills.

One of my regular readers reminded me of something that I want to be clear about. Here at Social Capital Mentor, we don’t intend to teach and advise you about social skills just because it’s nice to have good social skills. Instead, we’re showing you how to turn social skills into something of value - capital.

Think of it this way. You have three types of capital: intellectual capital, financial capital, and social capital. You develop your intellectual capital primarily in school and on the job. You build financial capital by making and accumulating wealth. Your social capital is your ability to use your social skills to get something, like money.

Of course, you’re not going to be paid directly for demonstrating good social skills. Nobody’s going to say, “You were a great host for today’s dinner meeting, please let me give you a couple hundred bucks.” Instead, it’s an indirect connection. Your ability to be a good host at a dinner meeting lands you a new contract, a job, or a promotion. That’s social capital at work, increasing your financial capital.

So, it’s not about social skills for the sake of social skills. It’s about developing and using your social skills to develop capital.

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