I recently facilitated a program for a group of young professional women that wanted to develop their networking skills.

They no longer have the option of going to in-person meetings and “working the room.”  How could they grow their network in a virtual world without coming across as a “sleazy salesperson” or a “pest” bombarding people with meeting requests?

Here’s what I told them:

• Know Your Goals: Determine what you are looking to gain through networking. Are you working on transitioning into a new job or career field?  Do you need to innovate new solutions in your field? Are you seeking mentorship?
• Find Your People: Based on your goals, search for people that can help you achieve those goals. You might search by job title, company, geography, or other fields in LinkedIn or professional society membership databases.
• Introduce Yourself: Send a connection request with an authentic personal note about why you want to connect.  If they ignore you or decline your request, then they’re not your people.  Move on and introduce yourself to others.
• Build the Virtual Relationship: Like and comment on their posts on LinkedIn. Send them a private chat saying hello during professional society virtual meetings.  Send them links to articles that you think might be of interest to them.  Compliment and congratulate them on milestones and achievements.
• Invite them to Talk: Invite them to join you for a virtual coffee so you can get to know each other better and find ways to support each other. Tell them what you respect about them based on their profile and social activity and what you would like to learn from them. Authentic flattery will get you everywhere!
• Ask and Listen: Prepare questions in advance and be curious during your conversation. People love to talk about themselves, so if you lead them with questions to learn more about them, they will enjoy the conversation.
• Offer Your Help: Work towards building a mutually beneficial relationship. Listen for opportunities during your conversation and offer to help them. Even if there’s nothing that you can help them with, they will appreciate the offer.
• Sustain the Relationship: This is where a lot of virtual networking falls short.  People meet once and then never connect again.  If the relationship aligns with your goals, make a plan to stay connected.  Arrange a date and time for your next discussion.  Or, add reminders to your calendar to reach out monthly (or whatever cadence makes sense) to check-in.

I have expanded my network and built powerful and productive, mutually beneficial relationships using this approach.  The key is to approach networking with:

1. authenticity,
2. a desire to learn, and
3. a desire to help.

If you keep those three things in mind, you can’t go wrong!

If getting to know me will help you achieve your goals, invite me to a virtual coffee!

Wishing you the best!