Are You Networking With Purpose? 🤔

First of all, if you're calling it "networking" chances are you're probably not. Effective "networking" includes building relationships, gaining new insights, and/or knowledge sharing.

Here's what I mean:

👉 Building relationships involves more than one touch point. You're getting past the "what do you do" and "where are you from" questions and diving into what each of your pain points are, what you're looking forward to, what you've learned lately.

👉 Once you've laid that foundation, you can gain new insights into their industry, their role, their company, their life experience. No one's tryna get that deep in the first conversation.

👉 The most important thing about networking to me is knowledge sharing. As an event marketer I was so grateful for all of the event pros that shared their knowledge about vendors they like, hotels that were hard to work with, trade shows that produced great results, how the hell they fit 5,000 shirts in a 5x7 booth. And in return I shared the same.

Ok, but none of that really works unless you have clarity💡 on what you want next in your career.

😩 What questions do you ask if you don't know what gaps you're trying to fill?

😩 Who do you reach out to if you're not sure what interests you?

😩 How do you have a productive conversation if you aren't sure what to offer?

Networking is an effective way to expand and explore your options, but be sure you know what's most important to you first to get (and give!) the most out of these connections.