"Networking" is Kind of BS
OK guys, this one is kind of "out there" but it's something I've been reflecting on a lot lately, so I figured I'd share it.
A few years ago I was at Launch Festival in San Francisco, hanging out around the Product Hunt AMA stage. I was with a friend speaking on that stage later in the day. This friend is a guy that is legitimately famous, which means a certain group of people either idolize him or really look up to him.
Naturally, famous people get approached all of the time, especially if they're hanging around in a place where a lot of their 'fans' are - and Launch Festival was one of these places.
We were sitting on a couch drinking some non-GMO, gluten-free, watermelon-flavored water - yes, those words were actually printed on a bottle of water - and a guy walks up to us from the side:
Random Guy: "_____? You're _____, right? I've been following you for years!"
They talked about business for a minute or two before the guy asked my friend for a picture, saying, "You're like...my idol, man."
I grabbed the guy's phone and snapped a couple of pictures of the two of them, and we sat back down.
After about ten more minutes of slightly awkward and forced conversation, another guy sat down on the couch next to us and introduced himself to my friend. Here's how he did it:
"Your name is _____, right? I'm Matt, I think we're speaking together."
My friend turned to him and they started to engage in a natural conversation.
Guess what happened?
Matt and my friend talked up until they both went on stage to speak. After they were done, they hung out for the rest of the day at Launch Festival, introduced each other to more interesting people, and ended up partying together the next night.
So what happened here? Why did one guy succeed at 'networking' and the other fail? There are a lot of factors at play - some controllable, some not. As the fly on the wall in the situation, I'll try to break down what I think happened and what I learned from the interactions.
Random Guy
- Could not explain in clear, concise words what he did in under 15 seconds
- His main reason for approaching my friend was out of idolization and hero-worship
- He mentioned he wanted to work together or 'help out', without a clear idea of what he could contribute when asked
- He 'over-laughed' at statements my friend made that weren't intended to be funny
- Responded to a lot of my friend's statements with "that's cool / that's amazing", which doesn't give my friend much to go on conversationally
- Is objectively not an equal in status and knows it, but makes it painfully obvious by signalling in very obvious ways
Matt
- Introduced himself quickly, with a clear reason for why he was talking to my friend
- Didn't signal lower status or idolization verbally or with body language
- May have known exactly who my friend was, but introduced himself in a neutral way
- Conversation was give and take, not question and pitch
The uncontrollable factors here are that the random guy is simply lower status than Matt, so is starting from a worse position than Matt. Random guy can't fix his objective status while in conversation, but he could have shifted the conversation and his approach in a way that allowed him to talk to my friend on a level playing field.
The controllable factors are all of the verbal and body language signals that the random guy gave off to make it clear that he thought of himself as lower status, and thus approached my friend in a different way.
Conversationally, he could have shifted the topic to something that both he and my friend knew the same amount of information about - something where the playing field is level.
He idolized my friend in business, but maybe they had a common hobby that overlapped. If he happened to have more value to give about this hobby, all of a sudden he'd be contributing something to my friend rather than constantly taking away.
This would raise his perceived status for the interaction and make it much more likely that the context switches from "fan/hero" to "friend/friend", or at least gets him closer to the type of interaction that Matt had with my friend.
You're either a giver, taker, neutral, or a mirror. When trying to meet interesting people, try to be interesting, give value, and act like a friend - that's really the only guiding principle behind successful networking you need to follow.
Thanks For Reading!
If this is your first time reading my writing, thank you!
My name is Kevin and I run a website called Epic Gardening, where it is my goal to teach 1,000,000 people how to garden. Now that I've found Steemit, I'm going all in on this community and sharing as much as I can here. You'll find me writing about gardening, business, health, and philosophy - I can't seem to stick to one topic :P
Thanks and happy Steeming,
Kevin
Great post, and best of luck with Epic Gardening. I've gotta get my gardens going again when spring arrives, I miss tending a plot...
Thanks my friend, I appreciate that. Consider me a resource for any and all gardening questions :)
Thought provoking, a little too thought provoking... I would be random guy, except that I wouldn't even approach because I know that I'd come across this way! 😂
Nothing wrong with that! All depends on your goals. His was to become my friend's "friend" and extract value from him, which I wouldn't expect to be something you'd even consider doing!
Great post. Having lived in SF and being steeped in the "techie" awkward forced friendship conference environment, you've nailed it on the head. It helps to have outside hobbies and interests that other people either share or find awesome, which leads to engaging conversations and friendships. If you're all business all the time, there's only so much runway to try and get off the ground.
100% agree. Super important in the tech world but equally applicable in normal life too!
Great post...makes ya think!
Thank you 😊
I would imagine that works in general with people in more cases than only this one. I couldn't imagine hitting on a woman "Wow it's you.. I've been following you in parks for months!" and then try to make it sounds as an impressive, nice feat.
People have different assumptions on how they can be at their best, but in most cases certain level of neutrality is far more better than trying to be in the extremes.
LOL. Yeah, in dating this is a MUCH worse strategy than even friends and networking.
Completely agree here. Well said.
Absolutely amazing post and thank you Kevin for having your website at the bottom. I'm actually starting a non profit with urban gardening soon so I know that I can use you as a resource in the future. Happy Steeming!
Wow, that'd be great! Let me know how I can support.
This is the second time I am hearing about you in that many days. First my friend Steve told me that he was on your podcast and just now,
@ucsdsu mentioned that you are his friend and in San Diego.
Are you possibly interested in a steemit meetup in San Diego? Let me know, I have a couple of people who want to do this.
Take care
Hey - awesome, that's great to hear. @ucsdsu is actually my cousin!
Who else do you know that's in San Diego?
Kevin
Mostly newbies but there got to be a lot of us here :)
@bencossel @thisgirl @ bxlphabet @dennisauburn @yigawolf
Your cousin said that he might come...
Which area of town are you in?
I'm in Hillcrest - let's make a #sandiego tag and start posting there!
sounds great!! I am in Lemon Grove. 10 minutes lol. I am going to ask the library if we can have a meeting room. that would be less noisy than meeting in a cafe or restaurant? Or better a place to just visit? I am thinking of doing tutorial meetups eventually - not that I know a lot. but I am coming from a non-tech background and can see where people are getting stumped the tech people can't because to them, it is so simple :)