Work | Help others
How to build a strong network
In all of my career, there was only one job where network didnât play a role. Everything else, from my PhD scholarship to CTO role to the first customers for my startup was all network.
Why? Because in all these cases I had built trust with these people. They knew what I was good at so trusting me was going to be easier than assessing hundreds of other options, especially because assessing candidates is hard, much harder than relying on a trusting relationship or recommendation.
The value of your network becomes more and more important as you advance your career: Whether in politics, business, or academia - the higher up the ladder, the more the person is leveraging their network and being paid for it.
I was lucky to interview Mark Moore for this podcast. I got to know Mark in a startup incubator and he is probably the best connected person I know. In the podcast he is sharing his approach (spoiler alert: helping others and being a good human) and lots of fun stories.
How to build a strong network
Make work-friends
Building a network is similar to making friends. Check our posts on being curious, giving, and being the spark. Plus if you frame it for yourself as looking for genuine connections, potentially finding friends, itâs also more fun, and less ugh.
Be curious: Listen with intent, use their name, find commonalities. Find something you find genuinely interesting about that person and appreciate that about them. Then offer vulnerability when they are curious about you.
Give: The classic networking example is to give âfive minute favorsâ, for example making an intro, giving honest feedback, brainstorming, sharing relevant insights. Do those while you meet the person, so youâre not adding todos.
Be the spark: Host events like regular drinks, coworking, workshops, conferences. This has lots of benefits: You can invite your favorite people, itâs very time-efficient, they can bring people who youâll probably also like, âŚ
Manage weak links
We can only be friends with so many people unfortunately, so many of your contacts will stay weak links - people you know but arenât close with. Because they are not in your core network, they are often the ones who will know about opportunities your core group doesnât. But for that to work you need to stay on each otherâs radar.
Build a rolodex: You need a system to easily find relevant people you know. For most people, thatâs their brain, but at some point it stops working. Bill Clinton had index cards, I started using a CRM once I noticed my brain not keeping up.
Stay top of mind: While a rolodex helps you remember your contacts, your contacts also need to remember you. For this, people used to send birthday and christmas cards. Nowadays, regularly posting on socials can do the trick.
Activate dormant ties: Even better than posting on social media and much easier than making new contacts: Reach out to people you met before, check in how they are doing. If you two hit it off back then, theyâll love you thinking of them.
Focus on the right people
One of the ideas of Euzoia is that we have to spend our time well. In an ideal world we can spend hours with every person we come accross but most of us are probably having difficulty keeping up with our regular friends. So: How to prioritize?
Fun x potential: A friend working for BCG had to learn to network and sell after he became partner. Being BCG, they broke it down into a 2x2 matrix: Focus on people you like to hang out with and people with high potential.
Ask for recommendations: Very simple hack that I see few people doing: When you go to events, ask the organiser or regular of the event: âwhom should I meet here?â They might even intro you to the right people.
Go through referrals: This might be obvious but it wasnât for me for a long time. If you want to reach a hard-to-reach person (investor, philanthropist, âŚ) try to find creative ways to get intros through (chains of) people that will vouch for you.
Three first steps to build your network
Re-engage: Before building new connections, check in with people you like.
Go to events: Make a commitment to attend networking mixers.
Show yourself: Post on social media once a week.