This past year we launched a podcast called Who Got Me Here, where we interviewed some of the most active and successful connectors in the world—the kind of people who seem to know everyone.
The group includes CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, and recruiters. These are people at the top of their respective fields.
The interesting thing is that the best networkers don't network. They hate networking just as much as you do!
That said, they do things differently than most of us. As we got to know more and more of them, we observed that they use five distinct power moves to build massive professional networks.
Superconnectors go out of their way to be great colleagues, teammates, and friends—because you can’t connect the dots between people without having relationships to draw on.
Superconnectors maintain an inventory of who they can reach and what those people are up to.
Superconnectors take the initiative in relationships, reach out and make things happen.
Superconnectors seek out people who their friends know well and rarely approach strangers.
Superconnectors find ways to communicate with large groups of people at the same time while staying genuine.
Over the next 5 weeks, I'll go deep into these strategies, sharing stories from the podcast and giving you tactics you can try out.
If you really want to make it stick, my advice is to form a small group of 2-3 people who are interested in this Networking Masterclass idea. Pick a time to get together once a week for 40 minutes, and create a recurring 7-week calendar event.
Each post in this series will represent 1 week. I'll provide tactics to try out, links you can read, and questions to reflect on. Doing this as a small group will help you hold each other accountable, but you will also learn through discussion. You can hear other people's experience trying out a tactic and find out what worked or didn't for them.
The Coaching Note Template (Google doc), is one that you can can clone and edit. You'll write down your goals, what you tried this past week and what you learned. Just like book club, you'll share insights and questions with your peers. Towards the end of the conversation, jot down key takeaways and action times for the following week.
For some, this might seem like a little much. But trust me. It really works! By the end of 7 weeks, you'll have invested ~10 hours, and I can say with absolute certainty you'll have built up a new muscle and a much stronger network!
If at any point along the way you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn. Good luck!
