Why I hated networking ... and why I was wrong

In the town I grew up in, networking was known only as friendship. If you needed a new position you rang a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a friend of a friend of a friend; you told them what you were looking for and where and they usually knew someone who could help. That has been the case throughout my career and has been the source of many job opportunities (even in cities hundreds of kilometres from the town I knew), but I now know the practice by its proper name; networking.

After moving to the city - Melbourne initially, then to Canberra, and then back to Melbourne - I was regularly invited to attend networking events. As an ambitious young man it would have been a sensible career move but without anybody to explain the purpose I thought of it as a pointless exercise.

When I took a role that involved business development, in an industry I was unfamiliar with, I was thrust into a world that did not come naturally to me and which represented a strange new path. The dreaded networking event had become part of a job that I wanted to take very seriously and working for a leader that I both respected and enjoyed a positive relationship with for the first time.

Networking was an activity I thought that I hated. But it turns out I love it.

When I started in my role at Connexxion, with a three month contract as Management Systems Advisor, I never imagined that two years later I would be driving a business development project in software for the agriculture, horticulture and medicinal cannabis industries. After another year (making almost three years in total) I have learned to embrace networking for all the opportunities it provides and for all its positive side-effects.

The skills I developed through training and experience have given me the confidence to become the President of Melbourne’s Junior Chamber of Commerce and a Professional Mentor associated with the Maribyrnong and Mooney Valley Local Learning and Employment Network (MMVLEN).

The people I have met through events, social media and cold calling have provided leads and opportunities for my business development activities that I could not have accessed otherwise. In addition, many of these people have become fast friends in a world where friendship can be hard to come by.

First impressions are important and being able to explain why you’re attending an event or calling a prospect are essential skills to have when you’re developing a network. For me they were skills I had to focus on to build because they did not come naturally (I know that I have a tendency to ramble when I’m nervous) but over time these skills have come to be among my most highly prized.

One of the side-benefits of actively building a network is the compliments that it is possible to receive from people that you may not expect. With an interest in politics I was humbled to receive what I consider to be high praise from a very successful local government councillor who is now a good friend; she described me as a ‘rising-star’. Those are words I have heard used about a young Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten so to hear those words applied to me was particularly overwhelming.

Looking back on what has been at times an uncomfortable journey into the world of business development and account management I can see the simple errors I made early on:

1. Taking a scattergun approach can be very effective if you want to lobby members of a government to support your cause but if you’re focussed on a particular topic (in my case agriculture) then make sure your approach isn’t forwarded to the Minister for Agriculture’s office more than 100 times over a couple of days.
2. Some people who you’d think would be supportive and interested simply aren’t. Acknowledge that and move on as quickly as possible. You might as well be talking a tree about all the good work you’re doing if you can see that they’re too busy or disinterested to engage.
3. Know your audience and their interests. A rural Member of Parliament is most interested in what you can do for the people of their electorate, not what you can do for the people of small island nations in the Pacific.
4. Resistance is futile. I remember describing networking events as “the most evil of necessary evils”. While I still find myself with sweaty palms at some events I have realised that the need to develop a network outweighs my fear of public speaking and that the experience gained at events like that can be useful in a whole range of circumstances. Networking events are very similar to job interviews; the person on the other side of the table could help your career significantly but whether they will or not depends on your ability to convince them that what you’re working on is valuable to them.

So, if you're like me and you grew to hate networking my advice is to give it a go. Stop avoiding the simple pleasure of a nice wine surrounded by other rising-stars and see where in the world it could take you. If you've had a similar experience with networking I'd love to hear about it.