Build Your Network 1/7: Why Most Networking Doesn't Work and What to Do Instead

0:00Welcome back to the Productivity Podcast where I give you a daily productivity tip so you can get the most out of your time, your talent, and your ideas. I'm your host Brandon White, here we go. I was at a conference in Washington DC a few years back, nice hotel, open bar, great food, and all the right people in the room. A guy walked up, shook my hand, and before I finished saying my name, he was already scanning the room over my shoulder, already looking for the next person to talk to. He handed me his card and said, let's connect, and was gone in under 90 seconds. I looked down at the card when I got back to my hotel room and already forgot who he was. You've met that guy. Maybe at a conference, maybe at a chamber breakfast, maybe at a holiday party, he's everywhere. He thinks he's networking, but he's not, he's collecting, and there's a big difference in what those two things produce. Today kicks off a seven-part series called Build Your Network.

1:03We're covering why networking fails and how to do it right, how to treat your network as a real asset, the three types of relationships you need, what you should be depositing into your key relationships, how to identify the handful of people who can change your trajectory, and how to build a deliberate structure around all of it. In this first episode, we're breaking down why most networking fails before it even starts, and how to do it right. Look, most people show up to networking with two problems working against them at the same time. The first is mindset. They're hunting for what they can get rather than thinking about what they can give. The second is strategy, or the complete lack of it. No clear sense of who they want to meet, why those people matter, or what they would say if they actually found them. Those two problems feed each other. When you don't know what you're there to offer, your default is grabbing whatever you

2:04can, and when you're just grabbing, you never build anything. David Noir, who wrote Relationship Economics, maps out exactly where this breaks down. We identify three phases where most people blow it, preparation, interaction, and follow-through. In the preparation phase, the problems are a lack of purpose, fuzzy goals, and no relationship development plan. Most people walk into the room with nothing more than a vague intention to meet people. That's not a strategy, that's hope. In the interaction phase, people show up reactive and haphazard. They engage transactionally thinking about what they can get rather than what they can offer, and they're often talking to the wrong people entirely because they never figured out who the right people were before they walked into the room. In the follow-through phase, they fail to give the people they met any reason to remember them. They disappear, and the connection dies before it even started. No follow-up, no value, nothing.

3:08Do that long enough, and you end up with a contact list full of strangers. Now here's where this gets interesting. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, spent years studying how people build success through the relationships. His findings came from interviews with 30,000 people across industries and cultures. What he found was counterintuitive. The biggest givers in any network end up at both the bottom and the top of the success ladder. The ones who get crushed are giving without strategy, burning themselves out with nothing to show for it. The ones who win are giving with intention, playing a long game most people don't have patience for. The collectors, the guys scanning the room at conferences, they're the takers, and Grant's research shows that in tightly connected fields, takers' reputations catch up with them faster than they expect, doors quietly close, introductions stop happening. The intentional givers are quietly compounding something no one else can see yet.

4:12So here's the reframe of all this, networking is not a transaction, it's an investment, and here are three things that separate investors from collectors. First, they arrive with a plan, not, I'll see who's here, a specific person, a specific reason to connect, and something of value to offer. I had a business development guy who worked for me, the best I've ever seen at this. He came to every event with a target list of people he wanted to meet, a short background on each, and a specific thing that he could offer every single one of them, no guessing, he always left with real relationships, not a stack of cards. Two, they add value before they ask for anything. A relevant article, an introduction or resources useful to that specific person. People remember who showed up for them before they need anything, that memory is worth more than any follow-up email. And third, when they follow up, it means something.

5:13Not a copy and paste linked in message, a real reference to the conversation you had, followed by doing what you said you would do. Think about the people in your own network who have moved the needle for you, in your career, in your life, wherever. Not one of them handed you a card and disappeared. They paid attention. They remembered things, and they found a way to be useful before you ever asked. The guy with the wandering eyes and the stack of cards, he's still out there collecting. The investors, on the other hand, are building something that grows. Here's your move this week, before the next networking event, meeting or professional situation you walk into, write down two things. First, one person you want to connect with. And second, one thing you can offer them. One person, one thing of value to them that they will find useful. See what changes when you walk in prepared like that. In the next episode, we go deeper. How to think about your network as a real asset, and what treating it like one looks like

6:16in practice. Your move. Thanks so much for listening to the Productivity podcast. Please remember to hit the follow button in your podcast player so you never miss the show. See you in the next episode.