How I built my network...
...as someone who hates networking.
Happy Friday, friends!
The other day, someone referred to me as a superconnector and I was like “umm…are you sure you mean me?”
Here’s the thing: I’ve always hated networking. For the first five years of building my business, I felt like I didn’t have the “right” network. I kept hearing from people who built their businesses through their networks, but even that wasn’t enough to motivate me to grow mine.
So what changed? If I’m being honest, my business coach made me do it. And 18 months of consistent effort have really paid off: I’ve found new friends, guested on podcasts, been featured in articles, collaborated on projects, and had so many leads referred my way.
Here’s how I did it without feeling gross or burning out.
👉 First, some general pointers:
→ Get crisp on what you do and who you do it for.
This will not only guide your outreach efforts, but it’ll make it easy for people you connect with to amplify your efforts and even send work your way.
True story: I once hired a freelancer I met at a candle-making class. She told me she managed email marketing for early-stage ecommerce brands. When one of my early-stage ecommerce clients needed help with email, guess who I thought of?
→ Think strategically about who you want to connect with.
For me, this falls into a few buckets - potential referrers or collaborators, people who fit my ideal customer profile (ICP), and other fractional CMOs. The first and last buckets are most comfortable for me when it comes to networking, so I need to be very intentional about also connecting with my ICPs.
→ Find what works for you.
Whatever you do, it needs to be sustainable - something that you can do consistently over time. I had to trial-and-error my way through this, because when I started, pretty much everything felt awkward. But with some practice, a few things started to feel right…and in-person events and conferences just kept feeling wrong. And that’s okay - I kept what worked and gave myself permission to skip the events.
Now, on to the specifics…