Warning: I am no Jack Welch or Lee Iacocca. I am not a millionaire and I don't have years of business experience. But neither are most small business owners. Which makes me wonder why many people still obsess over doing business based on dogmas.

Take for instance networking. How many freakin' books have been written about what essentially amounts to talking to people. All the never eat lunch alone and always follow up with a phone call tips make networking your full time job. Networking should never outweigh the task of actually running your business. That's why it's not how much you network, its how smart you network.

So when I read this article, it felt pretty refreshing. It is characterized as networking for introverts, but it could easily be called networking for the smart and efficient. Now I still think even some tips on the list are overkill, but these two stood out for me and are really all you need to know.

• Find the key nodes in the network.
• Don't network just for the sake of networking.

Basically these tips can be explained as such: First, you don't need to know a ton of people, you just need to know one person who knows a ton of people. Might as well let someone else do all the work right?. Find a Connector, they tend to be the people who actually like doing this stuff anyway. Now you just need to keep in touch with one person, and when you need a particular resource, you can have them introduce you (plus, now you have a direct reference).

Second, spend less time networking. The less time you spend talking, the more time you spend actually doing. What's the best networking tool? Being a valuable person yourself. A person that has created something remarkable, a person whose actions have spoken louder than any words. Show, don't tell.

You can waste so much time trying to make connections you'll never have time for anything else. Use your gut. You usually know when an opportunity has potential. It's better to set yourself up for one valuable contact than it is taking every meeting, lunch, or business card that comes your way. This is similar to choosing clients. Better to set yourself up for that one good client than to say yes to every job opportunity that comes your way. You should be spending most of your time running your business and creating something great, not shaking hands and talking about the weather.

From misaligned business plans to an over-reliance on numbers and research, in business there are so many things that people tell us we should be doing a certain way. So much "this is how things are done." Screw that. There are no rules. Grow your business in the way that works for you. Avoid dogmas and standard practices and embrace common sense. There's always a better way.