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  • Naiman Labs Newsletter #39. Networking is simply too important today to ignore

Naiman Labs Newsletter #39. Networking is simply too important today to ignore

Hi friends and welcome to the newest Naiman Labs Newsletter post! Every Sunday I share some thoughts about career, life and productivity.

In our digital communication era, we can easily find ourselves in the ease of communication on the one hand and in complete loneliness on the other. It is fascinating how talking to other people has become both easier and more complex at the same time.

When you use social networking, it now feels super easy to reach out to different people working in various companies, potential clients, potential hiring managers, celebrities, or friends of friends. At the same time, when you have a wave of messages and connections, the chances are that your message will get lost. The ease of digital connections makes offline connections even more challenging, demanding, and valuable at the same time.

Today, networking is more important for our lives than ever. Over recent years, people have moved to different places, thanks to COVID, remote work, and irresponsible, careless politicians.

I don't know about you, but my family, friends, ex-colleagues, current colleagues, and people I learn from live in different parts of the world today. So, social connections are more important to me personally today than they have ever been.

I admit I am still very bad at networking and keeping social connections, but I am trying to learn. Today, I want to share with you some interesting tips that I have found for myself and some practices that I try to do regularly.

🤝 How I Try to Keep My Connections:

Managing Your Social Circles

We all have many social connections, right? What I find useful for me is to have "social circles" in my head. Identify the social groups of your connections that matter to you. This might be your friends, family, friends from work, colleagues, professionals you're interested in learning from, potential partners, and so on. Do it for yourself; nobody will ever see it. Some people will appear in multiple categories, and that is okay.

Building Personal CRM

One thing I am going to try for myself is building my "personal CRM," something similar to what Jeff Su shared in his YouTube video. I think this might be pretty useful for structuring the information.

Playing a Win-Win

I find it useful for my professional connections. For me, this is all about mutual respect. Whenever I ask anyone for help or advice, I want to give back to them and be useful. If I want to share something valuable, my experience, knowledge, or even help - why not? It might be quite bad if you just ask and ask, so the person you ask for help doesn't get anything from you in return.

Being Respectful and Polite

Being respectful and polite is important, and it really doesn't require a lot of effort. I'm not talking about being polite in communication; that goes by default without saying. It is about being attentive. Wishing a happy birthday with some personal touch, congratulating on a career move, or simply answering questions when people ask them on social media. This keeps you visible and shows your attention. I add the most important birthdays to my calendar so I don’t miss them. I find it also a good practice to check the connections' updates on LinkedIn from time to time. Based how I personally feel when receive various messages I find it better not using those default "Congratulations on the new job" messages made by LinkedIn. I find adding some personal touch nicer.

Creating a VIP List

I found useful advice from Jeff's video again here. Having a "VIP list." It is just for personal use, and nobody will ever see it. Depending on our stage of life, some connections are more important than others, so why not have a most important list and make sure you are the most attentive to them. This can be mentors, senior colleagues, friends, and family. This list should be live and should go along with your life journey.

Keeping Notes of Conversations

Last but not least, what I find very useful is to keep notes of your conversations. Let's say I had a chat with a friend, and they recommended a book to read. After several months, I might not even remember this recommendation, but wouldn't it be great to begin a new interaction with something like, "Remember the book you recommended me last time? I read it, and it's great." So I try simply spend 5 minutes after the conversation to take the key notes. That works for my work as well as for my efforts to grow my network.

🕸️ Expanding the Network

This is super hard for me personally. I think most people feel quite uncomfortable when they are at some events and need to talk to strangers. I am honestly quite bad at this and I am just learning. The first step is always hard there. I think I can be quite good at small talk, in conversations with people I don't know and people I am seeing for the first time, but the first step is hard. How to approach someone? How to begin the conversation?

Ice-Breaking Techniques

I like these pieces of advice I heard in Think Fast Talk Smart podcast.

Simply ask these questions. What? Ask what somebody is interested in or what they're enjoying currently. So what? Ask them why it's important and what they've learned. And then finally ask them now what? Ask for some advice or next steps. For example, if you know someone has started binge-watching a new TV show, you could ask, "What's the show about?" "Why do you like it?" and "How and where can I find it to start watching?" The what, so what, now what tool is a very powerful way to initiate small talk or get others to chat with you.

Utilizing Social Media for Networking

Thanks to social media, expanding our network today is easier than ever. I think today it's one of my main sources. So I follow this strategy: “Start online - then try going offline”

If you follow someone you are interested in getting to know, simply engage in their content on social media. I try to comment and react to stories. Not just a meaningless like đź‘Ť , but comments, especially when they ask questions and when I can provide some point of view. This approach has already worked pretty well for me several times.

Direct Outreach

After you engage with their content, why not reach out to them directly? We all have this option today.

When I reach out to people directly on social media, I always try to do this:

  • Introduction: Who am I, what do I do, and how do I know them?

  • Context: Why am I reaching out?

  • Action point: What do I want to do next? Is it a Zoom call, a coffee invitation, or sharing some info?

Of course, people are not always responsive, but a polite and clear message will make it good for you.

Growing Your LinkedIn Network

I also try to expand my network regularly on LinkedIn. For example, when I was actively job searching, I followed a rule of adding several new connections daily. Now I do it less often, but I still try to do it regularly. For example, I select a person I know pretty well and explore their connections, adding people with the most relevant experience and background.

Seeking Introductions

Another good practice that I need to utilize more often is to ask for introductions. I believe this should work the best but I don't practice it often. But if someone can recommend you or introduce you, this will go a long way and will help you a lot. So now we can come back to a "VIP list" or CRM, thinking about who can recommend us to whom.

That's it for today. I am still in the beginning stages of working on my network, but the more I work on this, the more useful it becomes. Definitely today, your network is your superpower

đź“š If you want to get more on this topic, these are the links I find great to use: