I need to make a confession. I've been meeting strangers on the Internet lately. It's true. I've also been meeting strangers in person lately. You see, I'm making a concerted effort to grow my network, both in the digital realm and IRL in real life. And if you've ever felt like networking is clunky, forced, or awkward, well, this episode is for you. We are going to apply UX thinking to networking, to make networking feel authentic and natural and effortless and consistent. You'll learn how to make networking feel natural and human and intuitive so that you can grow your network, that you.

You can help others in the process, and that you can make it easier for other people to connect with you as well. Now, this idea of networking and my approach to networking ties perfectly to the design principle that's titled consistency in standards. And that design principle reads like this. Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations or actions mean the same thing or different things. Follow platform conventions. So we're going to talk about networking conventions. We're also going to talk about networking conventions as how they might vary across different platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram or in real life. And then I'm going to give you some tips and some strategies about how you can put networking to work for you so that it feels more authentic and really effortless.

Now, I want you to pause for a second and think about your own conventions as it relates to networking. Now, some of you might be saying, like conventions, what are you talking about? I haven't been networking at all. Maybe not since pre pandemic, maybe not ever. Well, in which case we need to work on that. Now, conventions or like what your standards are or what your common best practices are might vary from one platform to platform. It's important to be consistent, though not necessarily consistent across the platforms, but consistent within a platform or consistent within how you network in real life. So, so let me give you some examples to just really put some context to this.

So in my digital networking, I am open to networking, wide open on Instagram and YouTube. You can follow me there without any restrictions. In fact, if you're not already following me there, I encourage you to follow me there. You can get full episodes of the podcast on YouTube and then on both YouTube and on Instagram. I'm posting shorter snippets on and ideas about the podcast, sometimes even a backstage look at podcast recording or why I chose to record a specific episode. So those platforms for me are wide open and I welcome anybody to follow me there. Now, my conventions on LinkedIn are a bit different. On LinkedIn, I'm certainly open to networking, but I know just about everybody in my LinkedIn network. So if I'm connected with somebody on LinkedIn, I've had a one on one conversation with them.

I know them personally. Now, maybe they've seen me speak in front of a larger audience and they followed up with me afterwards. And in fact, my recommendation to people who are in my audiences if they want to follow up with me on LinkedIn is to send me the personal note in LinkedIn accompanying their invitation to connect that says how we met. Now, maybe we didn't get a chance to talk after the event one on one, but if I at least know that they were in the audience where I gave the speech on xyz, I'm much more comfortable connecting with them because even though I don't necessarily know them personally, we have a connection. They know me, I know their organization that brought me in to speak. And so it feels much more like a one on one connection compared to somebody random on the Internet. Now here's what I do when I get that random connection on the Internet. They may have seen me on social media, they may have been in one of my audiences, they may be interested in hiring me to speak.

I have no idea what, what drew them to me. So before I accept their connection, I send them a quick note that says something to the extent of this. Hey, thanks so much for reaching out to connect on LinkedIn. Have our paths crossed in the past? Perhaps you saw me speak somewhere or you're interested in hiring me to speak or something else? I do know most of the people personally that I'm connected with on LinkedIn. So if we don't know each other, if we haven't met, would you be open to a, you know, 15 minute virtual coffee so we can get to know each other a bit or if we've already crossed paths, please let me know where and I'd be happy to accept your invitation to connect. So I send a note, a quick note like that. It's very friendly and warm and most of the time people will reply back to me and tell me what was on their mind when they wanted to connect with me. Oh, I saw we had a bunch of mutual connections.

I was surprised that I didn't know you since I know these other, since we have these 27 people in common, so that sort of thing. And when I get one of those, I'm like, hey, great, let's connect on Zoom for a 15 minute virtual coffee. And you know, happy to have you in my network because that way I can find out a little bit more about who this person is, how we might be able to help each other. And again, that I'm feeling much more confident in having them in my LinkedIn network so that I can make a recommendation or connect them to somebody else when the opportunity seems right. So that's my approach on LinkedIn. That is my platform convention for LinkedIn. And recently I have had several conversations with strangers who have replied back to, you know, they've reached out to me with a connection that I don't recognize.

So I send a note much like the one I just described, and then if there is some legitimate connection, then they will reply back and then we'll set up that zoom call. And I've had a bunch of those recently. So I wanted to just come clean. I've been talking to strangers on the Internet and making friends on the Internet because then they become part of my network. Now again, I have been doing that in person as well. I go to chamber of commerce meetings. My city has a small business networking group. I've been to that recently.

And I am exploring even other options for networking in person as well. So meeting strangers in person, meeting strangers on the Internet. Now, if you haven't listened to episode 78 of this podcast where I talk about, really my philosophy of networking, that episode is called how to network in the hybrid world and why you need to. And we'll link that up in the show notes because it really does give my fundamental approach to networking as a pay it forward approach, to being of service of other people. And that really is foundational. And if you haven't listened to that episode just in a quick thumbnail snapshot, what I talk about in that episode is the importance of showing up to serve others. And when we show up to serve others in building our network, it doesn't feel salesy, it doesn't feel smarmy and gross. And I'll talk about that here in just a second.

But that really is fundamental to my approach to networking, is a pay it forward approach. Because the law of reciprocity suggests that if I have paid it forward to you and then you need something from me, uh, it is much easier for you to make that ask of me. Um, just that's how the law of reciprocity works in human connection. Now, if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn and we're not connected, by all means, go ahead and reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm very findable there and just say like, hey, I'm a loyal podcast listener and I would love to be connected with you. I might invite you for a 15 minute virtual coffee if we don't already know each other and that would be fun. I really encourage that. All right, but let's get down into the nitty gritty of networking and what I wanted to share with you in this podcast.

So again, if you haven't already listened to episode 78, I go much more into my philosophy on how to network in a pay it forward approach. But today I really want to talk about networking as it relates to this idea of, of consistency and standards. So, first of all, make your connections, whether they be in the digital realm or in the face to face realm, as you're growing your network, make them genuine and authentic, not smarmy and salesy. A lot of people feel like networking is kind of sleazy or smarmy. And what I want you to know is that in real life and in your digital footprint, consistency means networking feels like you, it feels authentic. It’s you get curious about the other person, you want to learn about somebody, it's generous where you're giving, you're sharing ideas and resources and really being of service to the other person. It's not a one off sales pitch. That's what gives networking a bad name.

When people are wheeling and dealing their business cards and their LinkedIn profile and just trying to grow the number of followers they have, well, that's not authentic. That is again where networking gets a bad name. So when you're networking again, this goes for in the digital realm as well as in the face to face realm. Ask how you can help. Find out what people need, what they're looking for, and then offer some resources. Again, taking that pay it forward approach and let that be your standard. And really this question of how can I help? How can I what, what are you needing? How can you, you know, how can I help you? Let that be what you lead with. All right, then step two of networking is to follow up and to do what you said you were going to do.

So when you're in one of those networking conversations, whether it be like I was recently at my city small business event or whether it is in I'm going to a women in technology event in two weeks and when I'm at that event can guarantee I'm going to be making some new connections and I will be probably promising to follow up in a certain way or connect them with A resource or an article I wrote or a certain podcast episode that might relate to something that they could learn from. And what I need to do, and you need to do this too, is to schedule that time for follow up. After you go to a networking event or after I spend 15 minutes in a virtual coffee with somebody, I need to have some time carved out so that I can follow up and do what I said I was going to do. Because it is quite likely in taking my pay it forward approach, then I'm going to be making some promises to follow up in certain ways. And so if you promise to share an article, introduce them to somebody, send them a recipe, whatever it is, schedule that follow up time for yourself and actually do it. So just like good user experience, people are going to rely on the system to do the thing that it said it was going to do. People are going to rely on the system to behave consistently. I mean, imagine if, if you had a piece of software that sometimes when you created a document, it formatted it in this way and another time you created a document and it formatted that way.

If it was inconsistent and weird, you would not trust it. And likewise with your network, when you make a promise, you need to follow up and behave consistently consistent with that promise. So again, if somebody is going to reach out to me on LinkedIn, I'm going to give them the same kind of consistent treatment. Treatment not only in offering to connect on a virtual coffee, but then also following up on whatever it was I promised when we have that virtual coffee. I do want to make one quick caveat here that I, that I also am consistent about. But I didn't mention before, if I get a LinkedIn request that is not authentic, that I can tell when somebody is spamming me on LinkedIn. One of the first ways that I can tell that somebody's spamming me on LinkedIn is that, you know, a lot of people will just go in and scrape LinkedIn connections and then just mass reach out to people. On my LinkedIn profile I have the icon of a light bulb because I like to inspire new ideas and make people think differently.

I have a the icon of a light bulb before my name. So if somebody is just like spray and pray I and connect it, you know, spamming me on LinkedIn, they are not going to remove that light bulb. And just like on email. So my email address is drjanelanderson. When I get people reaching out to me, Dr. Janel all lowercase. I know they just scraped my email address from somewhere because even if they were going to address me as Dr.

Janel, which most people don't in an email, but they would do capital D, period, space, capital J, A, N, E, L. So I can tell when it's a spam. Likewise on LinkedIn I can tell when it's a spam and I just don't even bother to respond to those. I just hit delete, delete, delete. And if somebody carelessly sent me an InMail, which they had to pay for on LinkedIn, I might reply back so that it makes them use that in mail credit and tell them that I'm not interested in connecting with people who are just straight up trying to sell me something. Anyway, that was a little bit of an aside, but I wanted to mention that. All right. Now my third pointer for you is to show up over time.

Consistency is king here in how you show up in your networking. So don't just network in bursts and spurts when you need something that is very self serving and that is not the pay it forward approach that I'm talking about. Make networking a steady part of your business. Right Rhythm. And there should be a regular cadence to which you're networking in person at regular events. Like let's say you're a project manager and you make it a point to go to your local Project Management institute or PMI meeting on the monthly basis like when they're scheduled. So for example, for me I am in the National Speakers Association. I'm active in the Minnesota Chapter.

So when it suits my schedule I go to the Minnesota Chapter meetings and I learn from my colleagues and I have a great time networking and deepening relationships with other people who are in the same weird profession that I am. I also go to the national events and show up for those national events, whether it's our big summer conference or the Certified Speaking Professionals Summit, which is only a hundred or so of those of us who have that designation who go to that event and mastermind together in December or our spring conference, which is really all, really all built around growing your business and that's usually in March. Anyway, I go to all of those events to build and grow my network and quite frankly to hang out with my friends because I have created strong business friendships through, through those networking opportunities. So again, don't just do it when it serves you. When you have something to gain. Do it on a regular basis. Go to regular meetings. Sometimes it takes a minute or two to find the right networking group groups.

So for example, I joined the my local Chamber of Commerce. Not necessarily because I want to grow my business locally, because a lot of the business that I do is with national organizations and which you know, and not the small businesses in my community. But I joined that organization because I want to make friends with other small business owners in my community, because those are my people. Those are my people. So again, in showing up over time, this means going to those regular meetings, not just doing it in bursts and spurts when you need the connections, but consistency over time builds that credibility. It keeps the relationships alive, and it makes you memorable to the people who can refer you to other things or who might need you at some legitimate point in the future. So again, here's where we've been in talking about Networking today.

Number one, make it genuine and authentic. It's not salesy, it's not smarmy. When you show up authentically as yourself and give what you can give, it makes a world of difference. Number two, follow up on what you said you were going to do. When you meet somebody new and you offer a resource or another introduction or something to them, follow up is key to being consistent. And then, number three, make this a regular cadence. Show up over time. This isn't a one and done.

This isn't a burst or a spurt. This is you consistently showing up over time and building relationships with the communities that matter to you. All right, my challenge to you, my friends, this week is to make one new networking interaction this week that feels effortless for the other person and feels effortless for you, too, because it's a place where you genuinely fit and you genuinely have contributions to make to the people who are in that network. All right, my friends, that is my wish for you. Again, I challenge you to make one new networking interaction this week and make it feel effortless. Make it feel joyful, make it feel authentic, because it makes a huge difference in how you show up. All right, my friends, have an awesome week and be well.