Networking: Find Your New People
Creating a System to Find New Contacts and Create Extraordinary Opportunities
When I say networking, what is the first thing you think of? If you’re like most people, you’re thinking of an office lobby with a bunch of people dressed business casual, drinking local craft brews while awkwardly huddling in groups of people they already know. There may even be a few people hunting around like sharks, looking to find every person whose eyes they might connect with so that they can come over and start selling them on their product, service, or startup.
In other words, your idea of a networking event isn’t that fun and doesn’t sound that useful. But then you hear about the importance of networking in building your career. After all, you’re reading ANOTHER article talking about how you should be networking. So you suffer through these events in the hopes that you’re going to find that next job, partner, or investor.
But I’m here to tell you that you’re probably networking, at best ineffectively, and at worst flat out wrong. If you invest the time correctly, it can become one of your most valuable career tools in your arsenal, and one of the most rewarding. My time meeting colleagues for drinks, emailing entrepreneurs, and writing on social media sites like Quora and LinkedIn have led to opportunities as broad as new ventures, job promotions, and completely new careers. This can only work if done with the right frame of mind and a persistent networking mindset. Here’s how that works:
Networking is About Generating Mutual Benefit
The biggest issue with most networking strategies is that they start with specific, tangible, and immediate outcomes that need to be achieved. This is because people generally only start networking once a big chance is already required and they now need something from other people. Maybe they were just let go from a job, or are chronically unhappy and made the decision to leave now, or they’re up for a promotion and they think that attending a corporate networking event will help. With that, they’re going into a meeting looking for something out of the people they meet.
The problem with this approach is that it immediately puts you in the wrong frame of reference: looking at people in the context of what they can provide for you. This is not too dissimilar from how door-to-door salesmen approach their work. Now, someone in this position might not FEEL like they’re necessarily selling: they’re just looking for a job, or career change, or something else. But to the people who are talking to you, it’s clear that you’re looking for something RIGHT NOW, and if they can’t provide it, there’s little reason to continue chatting. And the door to that relationship is very likely to close with it.
This is because the atomic unit of networking is a mutually beneficial connection. When two people connect and begin to talk about mutual interests, ambitions, and needs, they’re signaling the value they want and the value they are providing to their peers. When two people realize that having the other person involved in their network makes them better off than not, you have a mutually beneficial connection. If the relationship is not mutually beneficial, and one party doesn’t feel like they’re getting anything of value from the other person, the relationship dies. And when one person starts the conversation attempting to extract value while providing very little, you’re highly unlikely to find mutual ground to build a relationship.
In this way, the best networking is not about finding an immediate outcome for yourself, but understanding how to provide the most value to the people you wish to become connected with. This is not to say that you can NEVER ask for value from your network, only that you need to invest the time to get the reward. Much like farming, you have to cultivate and grow your relationships before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.
The Best Networking is Great Personal Marketing
Because of this, networking is not about trying to identify specific people and trying to fulfill a specific goal. Instead, it’s about demonstrating your value in a clear way and putting yourself in a place where you can meet lots of great connections who could provide that value long term. In this way, great networking is less like personal sales and more like personal marketing.
When we think about marketing a product or service, we are ultimately trying to answer three questions:
Who exactly are we trying to reach with our messaging? Who is it that we wish to influence?
What are the benefits or pains that they’re currently feeling? What are the things that motivate them to take action to solve a problem or purchase a solution?
What is the message you wish from these customers to hear about your product? When they think of your brand, how do you want them to think about what you offer?
A great networking strategy in this case is not different than a great marketing strategy. But instead of a product, you are trying to market your personal value to the people you wish to be connected with. Understanding this group and what they’re looking for out in the world will help you understand how to properly present your unique background. This will take time, but your benefit is that people are always looking to connect with other great people, even those with less experience. A non-exhaustive list of networking needs includes:
Looking for new people to hire in the future, or people who know people in a particular field of interest
Looking for people who are experts in a particular field they are looking to improve in
Looking for people to mentor, or people who can mentor them
Hanging around people who are doing exciting things, or doing something in a new way
People who are just fun conversationalists, or have interesting stories about their work and their life
People who are in a similar place in their career or family life and looking to connect with like-minded individuals
While many of these things require being in the right place at the right time for an immediate benefit (people only hire sporadically, and often not for roles you can fill), many of them can be filled immediately. Being an interesting person doing interesting things is something people find attractive in a drinking buddy. Mentors are constantly looking for bright, motivated talent to cultivate into their chosen field of study. Being in a similar stage of life (like being a working Mom or recent graduate from the same school) will bring unwarranted levels of connection to your fellow peers.
But if you’re lost and not sure how to proceed, I can offer you a simple golden rule: always be looking to provide selfless value in situations. As long as you’re focused on providing more value than you’re getting, there will be no end to the people you can meet.
Make it a Long-Term System for Maximum Benefit
But networking means very little if it’s done in an instant and not followed upon. Most of the best networking opportunities in my life didn’t truly begin to mature until after a year of being acquainted and have multiple contacts over that time. Only afterward did the real value in the form of introductions, job offers, and interesting new opportunities come to fruition.
Because of this, you don’t need a goal to network more, you need a system to make networking and connecting a normal part of the work you do. Only when you’re consistently finding ways to reach out and follow-up with your new peers. While there is a myriad of changes and habits I can recommend, there are a few big ones I think that everyone beginning a career transition journey can benefit from:
Find and Identify Two or Three High-Quality Channels for Great Connections. Networking starts with introducing yourself to new and interesting people. But if you’re never in a place to find these sorts of people, you’ll be battling uphill to keep finding folks. That’s why it is important to find channels where you’re consistently interacting with the type of people you want to include in your network. Channels can include meetup groups, conferences, slack channels, LinkedIn groups, internal company chapter calls, and even effective use of Private Messaging on LinkedIn or Internal Company Communications. Depending on your network, the channels will change, but the best channels are ones where you don’t have to apply too much effort to meet new people.
Create a Habit To Reach Out Proactively To People You Wish To Connect With. Most people will eventually find themselves in a place where they’ll find people they want to connect with. But then they’ll leave the event and make no attempt to follow-up and connect again. Because of this, most networking opportunities are wasted due to a lack of follow-up and real connection. In order to make the most of your networking, it’s important that you find a way to consistently connect with folks after you connect. Simple strategies like connecting on LinkedIn, sending out a short email, or asking for a follow-up coffee/zoom meeting will help you stay connected and eventually find the common ground that creates great networking.
Keep a Personal CRM To Track People You’ve Connected With. This one is a game-changer. When you eventually start connecting with enough folks, especially if you’re connecting across multiple industries, you’re bound to lose track of some of the people you connect with. And when you find an opportunity to add value (for example, your company is hiring and a group of people you connected with might benefit from this), you’re going to want a way to reference folks you’ve connected with previously. I keep a simple Airtable document with the name, contact information, the date we met, and simple notes (doesn’t take more than 90 seconds per person). Having a document to reference for future connections will help you keep better contact with the people who matter to you.
Find Ways To Organically Connect Over Months (and Maybe Even Years). Once you’ve established a relationship with someone, your next networking goal is to find ways to consistently connect over time. Keeping with our theme of providing great value, this can be in the form of introducing a new connection, sending a book/article you think they’ll value, or just checking in to see how they’re doing. Sending a short help message does wonders to remind people of your value and re-enforce that you’re someone that’s interested in helping. Regular meetings or joint slack/discord groups are another great way to stay connected organically. Staying connected through short bursts over long periods of time is the perfect way to build long lasting relationships.
The Big Goal Is Attracting Chaotic, Beneficial Opportunities
Ultimately, good networking is a big transition from the once-a-quarter meetup strategy common for most professionals. But the end result is something far better: being more connected to the industry you wish to enter and get the chance to find new and exciting opportunities. Most really big opportunities have a fair bit of luck involved in making them possible, and those who happen to be in the right place at the right time become the benefactors of that luck.
Good networking, along with improving skills through consistent education, set you up to be someone who’s in the right place at the right time. What do those sorts of opportunities look like and how do I incorporate them into a cohesive career strategy? That’s what we’ll cover in our next article.