The exact tactics to make NETWORKING your superpower: PART 1
I am an introvert. 'Networking' always seemed a little mercenary, and a little unauthentic. But in the last 3 years I've met the thousands of phenomenal people. Here are the exact tactics I use.
Overcoming introversion
I am an introvert.
A decade ago I would have recoiled in horror if you’d suggested that I try ‘networking’.
But then my aversion to the concept ran up against my beach volleyball goals. And it ran up against my bank balance.
‘You’re leaving?’ my manager looked at me in disbelief. He held my resignation letter in his hand. ‘Do you have another job offer?’
‘Nope.’ I said. ‘I want to get better at beach volleyball.’
‘But you can train here.’
‘California has the best players in the world.’
‘Are you really sure about this?’ I wasn’t. But I knew if I wanted to improve, I needed to play with athletes who were better than me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’
So I quit my job. And booked a one way plane ticket to LA.
Hermosa beach in California is huge. It’s a 200m trek across the sand down to the water. And there are hundreds and hundreds of beach volleyball courts stretching out of sight, into the marine haze that is a part of the LA weather.
The first morning I arrived I was walking along the beach. Not a relaxing stroll. No. I was a volleyball player, looking intently for a court that had 3 players, and needed a fourth. I was looking for my way in.
After an hour of scanning the beach. I’d found a possibility. 3 girls had started warming up on a court.
‘Hi…?’ they looked at me questioningly as I walked up.
‘Hey!’ I gave them a huge smile. ‘I’m Australian, I just flew in today.’ I shamelessly played the Aussie card. For some reason all Americans love the accent.
‘Oh, welcome to LA then.’ They were hesitant. I would have been too. I’ve lost count of the number of times a random tourist (who can’t play at all!) has asked to join one of my training sessions.
‘It looks like you need a fourth. I could play with you. I play on the National Tour back home,’ I offered. I tried to add every bit of credibility I could.
‘Our fourth is coming,’ one of the other girls jumped in. ‘We don’t need you.’ She sounded like a snob.
‘No worries, I’ll just watch you play for a bit then. Have a good session.’ And I backed away.
15 minutes later, the same girl who’d shut me down sheepishly came back over.
‘Our fourth never showed up. Do you want to jump in?’
‘Yes.’ I said, jumping to my feet. ‘I’d love to.’ And I played my heart out.
The next day, they invited me back again.
I got on that plane to LA with just $2000 in my bank account. The math was simple, I needed a place to crash or I wouldn’t be able to afford to stay. I booked myself two nights in a hostel and gave myself 48 hours to figure it out.
A friend of a friend met me for coffee, and promptly offered to let me crash in her room while she was out-of-town for a week. A couple I met opened up their spare room for a month. When they went through a breakup, a friend of theirs took me in.
I ended up staying for 8 months without paying rent. What started as deliberate networking - building new contacts in the beach volleyball community - ended up as lifelong friendships and a second city in the world that feels like home.
Making networking a superpower
I built the skillset of making new friends when I travelled the world for beach volleyball. Not having a place to sleep is a powerful motivator.
But on the work front, I was always more happy with a spreadsheet of numbers than with people. It took a manager beating me over the head with the obvious - that all business is done by people - to make me prioritise building relationships.
In the last 3 years, I have embarked on the process of trying to quickly build a huge network three different times. I’ve needed to do so to land a job in a new career path of venture capital, then to do my job successfully, and currently to establish myself in a new country. Along the way I have met THE MOST incredible people. People who are generous, elite in their fields, care deeply about making an impact and who I just want to spend all of my time with.
To break down the numbers:
In the 6 months before landing a role in venture capital, I met with 90 founders, 45 investors, and mentored for 3 accelerator programs
Whilst working at Blackbird Ventures, I sourced and met 279 new founders, spoke at over 30 industry events, and co-led Blackbird’s incubation program which has had more than 1200 idea and MVP stage founders go through it
This year, I’ve spent 5 months in the USA and have had 1:1 meetings with Partners at 96 VC funds, and attended 49 in person events.
For an introvert, that’s a lot of people time!
I’ve had feedback like:
‘You’re everywhere, you know everyone!’
‘I can see why you are internationally considered the MVP of networking.’
‘You have magic when it comes to community building. You have this incredible orbit of people around you.’
Networking gets a bad rep for being schmoozy, self-serving, manipulative and a soulless task of collecting business cards (or Linkedin profiles) at events.
Done right, it’s none of those things. Instead, it’s the beginning of new friendships. Friends who help each other.
You will build new relationships consistently across your working life, but there are times when you need to do so quickly and at scale. You might be looking for a job, moving countries, starting a new role, working in sales or trying to fundraise. This post is for you.
Part 1 is your pre-work. The exact steps to take before you start networking at scale.
Part 2 is tactics. The exact techniques you can use for emails, events, and meetings.
A final reminder that whilst many of the relationships you build will be deeply fulfilling over time, the word ‘work’ is in ‘networking’ for a reason. It takes a ton of effort.
Getting your head right
Most of us HATE asking for help.
We hate feeling like a burden. We hate feeling like we are taking advantage of others. We hate the thought of needing someone else. And in Western culture there is this ideal that we should be able to do it alone, so asking for help can also feel like admitting you don’t have what it takes. In Australia (much less so in the USA), even asking for an introduction feels like asking for help.
Before you do any networking, this is a mindset that you have to shift. Here are the three framings I use to do it.
1) I love helping people
If I love it, other people probably get a kick out of it too. When someone comes to you for advice, isn’t that a compliment (and a bit of an ego boost) that they respect you so much that they would ask for your guidance? Or when someone asks for help that only you could give, isn’t it a good feeling when you have the resources to say yes?
So respectfully asking someone for help is giving them the chance to feel that same glow you get when you help others.
2) We give and receive in seasons
There are periods in our life where we need a lot of help - finding a new role, getting out of a bad relationship, grieving a loved one, going back to work after having a baby, changing careers…
And there are periods in our life where we are able to give a lot of help - mentoring new graduates at your company, providing a couch for a friend to sleep on, sharing your expertise on a topic once you are a few years into a career, or having the free time to help a family member.
If this is a season where you need help, remember that there will be plenty of seasons where you will gift that help back.
3) They can always say no
We are all adults. You can ask for help. And they can just say no. Or even ignore you completely.
That’s ok. In fact, that’s literally the worst thing that will happen.
Creating a target list
When you embark on networking you need two types of people on your list:
People you already know you can ask for help (ie. your existing network)
Your dream list of people you want to meet
The latter might also be a list of companies you want to meet, and then you would build out your target list of people who work there as a second step. For instance, when I came to the USA this year I started by populating my dream list of companies with all the VC funds that invest in consumer, sport, health and wellness.
Occasionally I have hired people from Upwork to help me build a target list. For instance, I might take a FastCompany award list of the 1000 fastest growing companies in the country and pay someone to research who the founder is, their LinkedIn profile link, how many employees they have, and a description of their business. This costs <$30 and has saved me a ton of time and manual effort when I was looking for new founders to contact and potentially invest in. Now AI tools can help you do the same.
Your ultimate goal is to get 1-on-1 time with the people on your dream list. You start by spending time with your existing network, and build towards your target list.
Tracking your network
Set up an Airtable or Google Sheet to track your networking efforts (both of these are better than excel as you can share them with just a link, and then other people can read the whole list to see who they know and can introduce you to).
As an example, the Airtable I built for the target list of VC funds I wanted to meet in the USA has the following columns:
Fund name
Website
Location
Stage they invest at
Verticals they invest in
Fund size
Key person to connect with
Who introduced us (or who could introduce us if we haven’t met yet - get this from LinkedIn mutual connections)
Circled back to introducer (ie. A checkbox field for if I circled back to the person who introduced me to say thank you and share the outcome of the meeting)
Status (ie. where I’m up to with connecting. I use the following options)
Cold outbound
Intro requested (ie. the person who offered to introduce you has sent an email)
In contact
Proposed times to connect
Meeting scheduled
Met
Pre-meeting notes (ie. Why I want to connect, key talking points to bring up in the meeting)
In-meeting notes
Follow up (ie. Any actions I need to take post the meeting such as sending them a thank you, actioning their advice, making an introduction etc)
Why you? What’s your uniqueness?
This is HUGELY important.
What is it about you that will get someone to say ‘yes to a meeting’.
This is a combination of:
Credibility - signals that you are a high value person
Curiosity - signals that the conversation will be interesting
Commonalities - signals that you have things in common with the person you want to meet
Credibility can include: going to a well-known school, high grades, working at a well-known company, the seniority of your title, a published piece of writing, well-known status within a certain niche, a senior degree like a PHD, the results of a project you completed, recognition from someone else of high credibility, producing high quality content etc.
Curiosity can include: your expertise about a topic, a unique experience you’ve had, an unusual background or personal story, or the intersection of two industries or topics that aren’t usually combined (for me this is often the athlete mindset combined with startups).
Commonalities can include: going to the same school, a link to the same geography, having a friend in common, a shared point of view that is contrary to the majority, a similar area of passion, the same demographic (ie. age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc), playing the same sport or instrument, a similar goal, supporting the same cause etc.
You will use this preparation work in 3 contexts:
1) General introductions
Create a short blurb, or a few dot points, that can be used by your existing contacts to ask whether someone in their network is open to meeting you. This is my template. I edit it slightly depending on the recipient:
Use numbers and facts, not adjectives. Include hyperlinks. And save your blurb in a draft email so you can copy and paste it easily. You’ll be using this a lot.
2) Specific meetings
For people on your dream list, a more specific mapping might be needed to get them to open their calendar. If they have a blog or have been on podcasts, using information they’ve shared there is the best way to show you’ve dug deep.
To give an example, when I met Kara Nortman who co-founded Monarch Collective (a $100M fund that invests in women’s sports teams and leagues - how cool!), here is the preparation I did:
Credibility
I worked at Blackbird Ventures, the top VC fund in Australia who raised $1B for their last set of funds
I’m a former professional athlete in 3 sports
I’m a Partner at Athletic Ventures, a syndicate of 150+ pro athletes
Curiosity
We have 3 overlapping passions: investing, sport, and female equality
She has an executive coach and I’ve written extensively about the value of coaches for athletes, and why more people in business should have them too
Commonalities
She lives in LA, and I’m currently in LA (and want to move here)
2 of her daughters also play volleyball
She was about to go to Australia to watch the World Cup which is my home country
3) Introducing yourself
When you do meet someone - at an event or in a 1:1 meeting - you’ll typically spend a few sentences to a few minutes telling your backstory to introduce yourself. Your dot points here form the structure of that introduction (more on this in part 2 of this blog series).
Your ask
What is it that you need from the person? A job, advice, to make a sale, an introduction to someone else…? Whatever you do, don't say ‘I’d love to buy you a coffee’ or ‘can I pick your brain’ without any specificity to your ask. If you slide into my LinkedIn DMs with one of those it’s an automatic ‘no’ from me.
If your ask is a ‘soft’ ask like advice, introductions, or knowledge then feel free to be specific about this in emails before you meet. For instance:
‘I just retired from professional sport. I know you went through this process a year ago, I’d love to ask how you mentally dealt with this since you’re a little ahead of me on the journey. Some of the things I’ve found challenging are…’
‘I know you’re an expert in data science in the gaming industry and I’ve loved listening to your podcast. This is an area I’m breaking into with my career, and you’re definitely one of the most well connected people in that industry. I’d love your advice on people you respect in the industry who might be great to work for.’
‘I’ve just moved to X city and I don’t yet know many people in the X industry. I’m particularly keen to meet more women in this space (since we are rare in this field).’
If your ask is a ‘hard’ ask like a job or a sale, then I prefer not to lead with this in an email as often people will come back with a straight ‘no’. Instead focus on the softer things in the email, think about how you can give value to them first, and you can bring up this more direct ask in the meeting.
Your offers
Strictly speaking, you don’t have to have something of value to give back in exchange, but it is always good to offer.
Don’t ever say ‘if there is anything I can do for you let me know’. This is a terrible offer as you put all the onus on the person (who is already helping you) to think of how you might be able to support them.
Great offers are specific, and ideally something that you uniquely can do. A varied list of offers I’ve made (and delivered) in the past:
An introduction to a person I know they would get value from meeting
Sharing a breakdown of an industry, skillset or market geography they are interested in learning more about
Sharing deal flow
Writing a guest blog post for them
Editing a piece of their work
Travel and restaurant recommendations if they are planning a trip somewhere I’ve been
An invitation to one of my sporting events
To collaborate on a project together
An invitation to an event or to speak on a panel I am organising
Mentoring people in their community
You can absolutely put the offer in your email request for a meeting. For example, when reaching out to USA based VCs, I often write:
‘I’m more than happy to share any insights on the Australian market, and I also know the founders of a few fantastic Australian companies that seem to be a great fit for your investment thesis.’
This has turned out to be a good offer because all investors have FOMO on the next big deal, and almost none of them have any coverage of the Australia market.
Ready to launch
Got your mindset right?
Built your target list?
Prepared what makes you unique, your asks and your offers?
Then you’re ready to launch. In Part 2 we’ll dive deep into exact tactics and examples for cold outbound, events, warm introductions, meetings, follow-up and maintaining your network long term.
And that’s by far the best part - meeting all your future friends, talking about all the ways you can help each other, and spending time having the most interesting conversations.
Networking starts off as work, but ends up as friendship.