Lessons in Networking
When I became my own boss, I began networking like my life depended on it. (It kind of did!) I sat down and brainstormed a list of people that I should reach out to and ask if they’d be willing to meet for coffee or lunch. (This was pre-COVID, clearly.) The list included people like my former boss, people who were well-respected and well-connected in their networks, and people who ran their own businesses or were in consultant-type roles.
I began chipping away at the list and noticed some interesting things:
Everyone I asked was willing to meet with me. Maybe this won't come as a shock to you but as a new entrepreneur at the time, I was worried that my ask for a meeting might be inconvenient to people. I was deeply appreciative that people were willing (and often very excited) to give me some of their valuable time.
For almost every meeting I had and crossed one person off the list, I added at least 1 more person to the list based on my conversations. After learning about someone's journey and sharing where I saw myself going with my new business, the people I met with naturally thought of others that I should be talking to. This made the process of keeping my networking ball in motion pretty easy.
I didn't need to have a lot prepared ahead of time. The first few meetings were with people I knew pretty well so I didn't feel a need to prepare a list of questions or do research on them in advance. This helped me gain confidence and a sort of rhythm that worked well as I started meeting with people whom I had no previous experience talking with. I always made sure to check out their LinkedIn profile so I had some familiarity with their background, and having 1-2 very open-ended questions always seemed to propel the conversation forward in productive ways.
I know that networking doesn't come easy to everyone so my hope in sharing these takeaways is that you get some ideas and gain the confidence that you, too, can be a great networker!
I'm curious to know, what do you find to be the most challenging part of networking?