How to make Networking work for you

I hate networking.

I've never been a 'social' animal and I always thought that to succeed at work, I just needed to do my best. That’s it. No need for 'friendly' referrals, connections...that all seemed to be unnecessary and almost feel like ‘cheating’ the game.

Probably I rejected it also because my father sponsored it highly (ah - teenage rebellion) and because I wanted to be distant from a historically highly un-meritocratic, hierarchical culture like the one that Italy has.

However with time, I realized how wrong I was to see in such a black/white way, and here's what I learnt along the way. 🧑‍🎓

What is Networking anyway?

The keys are:

🤝 Making contact - the beginning: you need to purposely and actively research and outreach to specific individuals, as well as finding the right way to do it

⬅️➡️ Exchanging information - this is the heart of any communication: but networking is harder; you may not know yet the other person or what information to exchange

👩‍❤️‍👩 Mutually beneficial relationships - this is the end goal: there needs to be something in it for everyone ('you scratch my back and I scratch yours - probably deeply wired in our primate brains') and the key is to understand what that is and keep this balance through tiime

Types of Networking

📍 Local: Networking in your Company - This is usually the first place you should start. Outside of your direct working group (peers, manager etc) you will have:

• Stakeholders - people not on your same team, but that will be impacted by your work (and vice-versa). This group is particularly important, and will give you time to practice conflict resolution, influencing and so on - vital soft skills. So networking (getting to know them better - will help you do that later on)

• Learning - Your chance to learn how other things work. You're in software development and want to learn about marketing? In today's world you can't have the luxury to work in complete 'silos' and be unaware of how all of the pieces of the puzzle work. This can be a good two-way exchange for both parties involved.

• Innovating - Having different minds and skills at the table is the best way to bring innovation in a company. You can propose doing a project together, and in the brainstorming phase you will get to know each other better.

• Hiring - Not obvious, but true: when you are hiring, you are networking. You may choose one person for that role, but you will have met x others in the process. I see that as a way of potentially finding good contacts and relationships, maybe for other needs or for the future. Remember to be kind, you never know where those people may end up in life!

🌏 Networking outside of your Company - This is the hardest part, but probably the one you can get most value out of - the sky's the limit!

• Experts and Mentors - you can look out for experts in your field and ask for feedback on your projects, learning resources and so on. Depending on who you target, it may be tough to get this for free unless you find the way to give something back, but there are a lot of people who like to take on mentorship regardless

• Startup projects - I love this one; there's a ton of people out there looking for co-founders. Whether you have already an idea and want to refine it, or don't have any and want to see if you find someone that does, this type of networking is usually the most 'energetic' you can do, given it's usually people that have fire in their eyes that want to change the world or their lives that approach this.

• Partnerships - Another great one; back in my startup experience we had a limited budget and had to be scrappy. Best way to grow? Find others to partner with who may have interest in your customers, sharing part of the budget (co-marketing) and so on. This gives you a great hook in your outreach.

• Interviewing - This is an underrated classic. During your working life, you may do tens/hundreds of interviews for different companies. Your goal is to get the job, but don't forget you are also networking. Meeting people who will be moving on to other companies, and who will have actually taken the time and effort to get to know you.

Where

🌐 Social Networks and Online Communities - Linkedin is an obvious choice here: you have more than 700 million users who you search for based on location, skills, companies and so on. More so, you can find thousands of groups and online communities you can join and do networking in straight away. Lookout for Facebook Groups, Reddit, Slack Channels and Discord channels - find lists online or ask your colleagues and friends. Twitter is another great one because it is conversation/relationship based.

🏢 Conferences - Slightly anachronistic in post-covid times, but not entirely. Conferences have historically been synonym of networking, and for a good reason: they put a lot of people with the same interest in the same location for a number of days. I won't dwell into the pros and cons of physical vs digital networking right now, but in whichever form this is a great starting point. Online events now give the opportunity to many more people to attend conferences all over the world, removing the costs and logistics of travel. There's plenty of sites that put them together, so just try to do a couple of searches on Google and you will have your list.

👨‍💼Ex-Colleagues - One of the most powerful. Wasn't sure where to put it, because you will have known these people in one of your work experiences - but once you or they leave, you will have the opportunity to re-network with them. This is powerful because they will have known you and they will have developed new social networks of their own - so you have an incredible multiplier effect.

How

🔬 Research - you won't always be able to do this before, but when you have the chance this will be your golden ticket to making networking work for you.

What does the person do, what to they value, what are their interests, what do they talk about? You can do this by:

- Looking at their Social Media accounts (public ones obviously, mostly Linkedin and Twitter) and what they post about

- Google search for their name to see if there are any videos, articles

- If you don't have any information, you can try to extract it from their ecosystem (company they work for, etc)

👋 Cold Outreach - If you don't have any connections in common, your best way is to be direct.

Given the information you have, the goal you set yourself, and the possible benefits you identified the other person may have, try to write a short but effective message and send it over. This is a little bit of an art, so probably worth spending some time on this topic separately, but everyone has their own style so practice and see what works for you.

👉👈 Ask for Introductions - All-time classic of course, and for a good reason.

Social proof is one of the strongest signals you can send to someone else's brain. You value your friend's expertise and judgment? If they introduce you someone you will assume they will be like them, plus, you are being asked to do something by someone you care about - so your brain will automatically be more prone to accept. The key here is to understand which of your strong connections have ties with people you want to connect with. How? Best way is to ask directly. Linkedin does help out when you're looking at company profiles/job openings by telling you if you have connections there. - but what if it's 2nd, or 3rd degree?

These are so-called 'weak links' in a social network have been proven to be the best way to find diversity and expand your network further.

Plan your Networking

🎯 Start with your Goal - We've seen how you could have several goals in mind to do networking; start with one so you have a clear and focused attention. Make it a priority.

🗺 Map the Territory - Put down on paper a list of people you know and how you think they could help you out pursuing this goal. Download your Linkedin connections, or start using a personal CRM. Try out ‘random’ connections, (i.e. with Lunchclub) and generally have an open-minded approach - it’s not a straight line.

⏱ Plan Frequency - It's important to plan to make this a regular habit. Carve out a dedicated amount of time (depends on your goal) so you do this in an orderly fashion.

🌱 Nurture - All relationships are like plants. You need to water them, or they die.

The stronger the connection you may have established, the longer it will go on with less 'water', but it's just a question of time, and for most cold-started networking relationships, you will actually be trying to spark a fire from nothing. A lot of work will be required, so plan reconnecting with old colleagues for example is extremely valuable to access their new networks (and vice-versa)

tl;dr - Why is Networking important?

Our whole universe is a giant network. All life forms are connected. A deep dive on networks and social graphs will need a separate piece, but most should be familiar with the six degrees of separation idea:

Everyone may have a different goal, so it won't be the same, but these are the most common benefits you will have if you start making this a priority in your career:

🧑‍🎓 Learning - Whether for the current company you're at, or for your own interest, you can learn a ton of new skills, be up to date with tools and how the market is evolving in different companies, parts of the world…which tools are being used and so on. By pairing up with people with different experiences, cultures and so on. Learning with others is the most powerful way to learn.

👷‍♀️ Founding - You may start networking but end up finding a co-founder to launch your own project.

💼 Hiring/Job Searching - Whether you're hiring, and need a trusted person's advice on a candidate, or whether you're applying for a role, and want to increase your chances to succeed - having another point of reference you value goes right at the jugular of the social brains we have been born with. It’s simply a way to get more signals to the other person that you’re who you say you are (credibility/trust), and that you may have something in common (this is called homophily). Of course if not done the right way it can backfire, but 90% of the time you are better off trying than not.

Useful Tools & Resources

📕 Your net worth is your network - seminal book by Porter Gale and Guy Kawasaki

📑 A more powerful way to network - good write up by Jeff Kavanaugh

🔧 Lunchclub - powerful app to schedule ‘random’ connections with people whom you may have interests with.

📑How to export your Linkedin contacts - If you want to go at this alone, a good first step is to download all your contacts from Linkedin.

🤝YC Co-founder matching app - Great place to start if you’re looking for co-founders; a Tinder-like app for business.

🛸 Clay - simply the most powerful personal, one-stop-shop CRM out there. Will help you remove the manual and tedious tasks and helps you with reminders, rich information about your contacts and notes.

🔍Teza.ai - a very smart tool to help you automate the research phase; input the name of the person and it will scrape the web and social media to cluster sentiment, topics of interest and so on.