Dr. Benjamin Ritter: Networking Hacks for Landing Big Jobs

So we're going to talk about how to make this work for you. Dr. Benjamin has graciously returned to the show. So I'm going to turn it over to Benjamin to do a quick introduction and catch you all up on what he's been up to.

How about a lot of my time has been on getting ready for the release of my new book, becoming fearless So go look for it, live for yourself, consulting. com slash becoming fearless. It's out there. But really even networking and there's a portion of it in the book about it in the book. It's all about being fearless and being intentional for yourself, towards the goals that you have. Wow.

Before we hit record, we were starting to chat about networking and we've both done it for myself. I've, I know a lot, or I've been exposed to a lot of networking. My very first job out of college, I sold newspaper ads for a physical business journal, and it also had a email, a daily email that was coming out very well respected, great business journal. But because of that, I was a salesperson there. I went to every networking event. Within 50 miles. That was my job.

If there was a networking event for grandmas with cats, I was probably there. If any local thing, any business launch, and I saw the downsides of it and the huge benefits of it, the downsides were a lot of these events. It's a bunch of salespeople like me all in a room chatting it up, handing around business cards, obviously looking for leads, right? Our intention to be there, trying to meet the right people.

I was lucky that because this business journal is very well respected, a lot of CEOs were at these events. And of course, it's very scary to come up and talk to them. And I didn't do that often, but I got to see the churn and burn, right? You see the same 20 people from around town at these same events. But I also learned how to navigate it.

And my take was really how to make friends, how to connect with people that I liked, and I could tell like me and not push an agenda, but get to know people and that those people, have now, I've seen a pattern of them showing up in my life, whether it be friends going to each other's big life events, weddings, things like that. And those are meaningful relationships, and those are also people that I've leaned on and have leaned on me, and we've helped each other out, not like an IOU or UO.

Once you develop those relationships, it can be a quick email like, Hey, I'm trying to do something or, Hey, do you know about this? Or sometimes it's just their expertise. It'd be like, if it's a lawyer friend, you hate to ask for free help, but it's Hey what should I do here? Who or what type of attorney handles this type of business thing? And those connections are really important. Just like I think friends should be, have really enriched my career.

Not just the friendships, but the industry knowledge they share. If we grab coffee and also the mutual connections they can help make in a non sleazy way. This is, think of it to me. It's like what friends do, right? What your brother, your cousin, whoever would do for you. If you said, Hey, where would you go here? Or, Hey, that company used to work at, could you make an introduction to this one department? Because I'm trying to learn about their process for this new thing.

That's been my experience. I hope that's not too boring, but I'll say I've been to a lot of networking events I've seen. I've done it wrong. I've done it right. And I don't do it nearly as much now. I, my goal when I go to networking events is to find someone who I can chat up about like hobbies and that I find interesting and whether it benefits me or not, that's how I like to make friends. And maybe after that you go out on a bike ride or go sailing together or whatever it is.

So that's my take. And. I'll pass it on to you. What has, what was your networking experience like early in your career and then how do you approach it now?

I just care that you feel comfortable going out there and meeting somebody new and feeling like you have permission to do that. And people spend tons of money on coaching programs and still have a very difficult time holding themselves accountable to talking to strangers. It's something that we work very heavily on. So for me, it took me some time. The first to get the confidence to go out there and to meet people.

And then once I started doing that, it was mainly for friends before it was for business. But then I had a pretty tough time in my professional career. It didn't really have a very strong network and the economy wasn't very good. And so for two and a half years, I had to go build my professional network, which was absolutely incredible for my future. Because I, during that time, when I was trying to get that first full time position.

Which actually ended up getting that full time job because of networking. I actually networked across from someone in a bar who was a manager of a hospital who first got my friend a job and then got me an interview, which led to a position.

But also networking led me to the alumni board of my school, like the youngest person on the alumni board, which then led me to a federal grant for six months of free life coaching, which then was a very pivotal moment for me to enter the field of coaching later on in my professional career. It also led me to getting a graduate assistantship, getting my entire graduate school paid for other than a small portion. And then in my professional life, like any networking leads to business.

Networking led to this podcast networking led to when I was building my business, all the events and the speakers and the people that would attend them. So it's crucial and it's important. And it's not for when you want something, need, it is a personality or behavioral trait. so that's my overview on networking.

I'd actually want to reframe it to, it's not networking, it's building relationships, if you go out there and you think that you're just going to take something or you're networking, like, like finding and finding a job, about 60 percent of jobs. You might've heard this before. These are positions that aren't really listed anywhere. You can only really find them through conversations and building relationships they're not listed on job boards.

If you approach trying to find those jobs with, I'm looking for a job, that's not networking. That is you just going to the store and trying to buy something off the shelf. If you go out there really curious about the person, about them, build a relationship, we'll talk about strategies. That's networking. Again, networking is building relationships. It's having conversations you're not solely just trying to take something, but you're trying to connect with the person in front of you.

That's my general overview.

And I've, even in the last year, I've shied away from it. I'll share, What's helped me a couple of things that have helped me is early in my career, a lot of networking events I went to, it was me and other people my, 20, 22 years old, but a lot of people were leaders in their now looking back, maybe they were in their thirties, but to me, they were like in their fifties, at least back then, right? And that's very intimidating to meet people like that because there's, to me, there's such a gap.

And one of the things that helped me when going to these events, you don't know anyone there. The options are you talk to people or walk circles around the room and find a corner. I've done that. It's painful. One of the pieces of advice I have for younger people, or anyone really, but people who are nervous about networking is, for me, one of the easiest steps is to try and find people just your age. There's something that's just less intimidating about that.

Even just to start, say, your evening or the event. There's benefits to talking to people who are older or younger, and some of those are obvious. But you will likely, if you're 22, you'll likely have more in common with the other people in the room that are 22. Conversation should be easier, your ideas, your maturity level isn't going to be as awkward as when you try and talk to the 62 year old CEO of a big company.

And it is intimidating, and it's easy to misstep there, because typically, whether they're nice or not, they have a different attitude. In the way they think is different, and unless they're incredibly kind and understanding, they're, they have their own agenda, and they're not going to naturally just be like, Oh, tell me what you did last weekend, right? That's going to happen a lot easier with someone who's your age.

That's helped me a lot, but then, The other side of that is those people will likely be better connections. So if you have a hobby, if you want, think you're going to want to hang out with these people afterwards, you're gonna have to find something to do. And grabbing drinks, isn't always the best option. A lot of people that's not their interest or that's not what they do. So whether you chat with them and you're in a volleyball league, or you want to go to a dog park or grab coffee.

That typically is a little bit easier when someone is aligns with the same point as you and your career. And that's just a starting point to me. Once you start having those conversations, usually. Things evolve through the event where, you will be talking with someone else. Maybe they'll see a friend, or you'll see a friend, you join the group, and then things transition into other conversations a lot more naturally.

But if you're thinking just networking event number one, and first five minutes, look for people that are your age that seem friendly. And that usually translates to a more successful evening of easier conversations.

These individuals are typically the event organizers or event regulars are extra welcoming and can facilitate introductions to others. So when you enter into an event, it can be very easy to warm up that kind of social aspect of yourself. If you talk to the people that are just. I'm like a social rocket fuel. So they generally are the organizers, the speakers, the regulars, they seem to be directing people, volunteers.

They can, and you can even tell them, trying to find people in the talent development space. And they'll go, Oh, I know Roxy comes here all the time. I'll point Roxy out for you. And so that's a good way to get like a quick in when you're at an event. The other piece was. Another tip for standing out is to attend events at times when there will likely be lower attendance, such as holidays, during bad weather, or when competing events are scheduled.

Attending an event when people have reasons not to helps you stand out and increases your chance of creating lasting impression. So that would be like, I actually came up with this and it stuck with me. It was a really cold, snowy day in Chicago. And there was an event that I really wanted to go to. And I was like, ah, it's really uncomfortable. I don't really want to go there, but I was like, I'm committed to this. I'm going, I'm networking. I went to the event.

It's probably like a third of the people that normally come. The host was there because it's their event. And every single person in that room, like we're able to connect on the fact that it was terrible outside and they had a greater chance to build a relationship. And the host remembered that. and everybody else there. Cause it was a very important day for that person. Cause they, they had this event. They didn't think people were going to show up.

And so also think about that when you're trying to like, should I go to this thing? Should I not go to this thing? It's raining outside. I hope this story gives you a little extra effort, a little extra kind of oomph to go out there because it can actually really help you. You actually create a pretty memorable experience for the people that are there.

If you keep your eyes open, you will see that person. It might be the local chamber of commerce leader or CEO. It might be, like you said, the event organizer. You can usually tell if it's one of the first people that has a name tag or their name tag looks different.

Sometimes that's a way, but that advice from your book, fearless is, I've seen this a thousand times and those people are always super eager to make introductions because one, they organize the event and their measurement of success is people having a good time meeting each other, being comfortable, and they want that because they want to hold more of these or that's maybe that's their job description.

A chamber of commerce leader or whatever else is invigorating business in the area from my experience. I'm so glad you said that. Cause I wouldn't have, I'm really glad that you read from that passage because I've seen that happen. And I've also asked that Hey, I don't know anyone here where. Where should I start? Or do you do you have someone you can make an introduction to? I don't have anyone to talk to. Those people it'll make their day.

They'll be like, oh yeah, you should talk to Jimmy over here. And Alice does this and this. And you have to meet this person. They do this. It works. It'll work every time. They, especially because they understand how awkward it is and how uncomfortable it is to not know anyone. And they want to help you be comfortable. And, It's one of those things, if you don't ask, it's you'll meet people. But if you don't ask for something like that, it won't happen.

People won't typically just start introducing you to other folks. We've been talking about in person networking, which I think is still super important. I think it has an advantage over online networking or meeting people, connecting with people online, but they're just totally different animals because you can't target someone in an event like you can online.

Getting out, showing your face, especially in your community, whether you live in a huge city or a mid sized town, doing that just helps your career and your outlook blossom. Just like you said, the person you met did this and this, that exact, I can paint. I can connect the dots in my career from my internship I had in college and the kind people there that I would go to some, a couple networking events there and they'd make introductions that led to that first job I had.

It's just going to that one event that newspaper sales ad sales job I had going to that event, meeting the right people and so on and so forth. And I think in this day and age of zoom meetings and why even what we're doing now, you don't get that. Energy of the room and exposure to people that you wouldn't have targeted through a linkedin message. You didn't know they exist They you didn't know their business or industry even existed.

that's the thing about in person Networking that's a little more interesting is it's a more of a wild card I've seen business owners will like somebody. Someone will be maybe earlier in their career and maybe they're trying to sell something. And there's a business owner that's completely different, weird industry. They make shoelaces or whatever and they're like, Hey, I really like you. You should come work for me. Ten years later, you're the kingpin of the shoelace industry.

Because of this weird thing, and that is much more difficult to happen online, but connecting with people liking you, you liking them, that can open doors and create some pretty interesting journeys, and that's the big benefit of it. Really quick, we should, before we move on to networking online, we should dig into some ways to connect with networking events, because some people, it's like where do I go? I'll let you start with that. I'm still thinking about it.

But what are some ways to look up networking events in your local area and selecting the right ones to go to?

And so online you can get very like granular and detailed and the types of person that you're trying to target. So you have to be okay with just like a large investment travel. Maybe there's some costs involved conversations that maybe don't lead anywhere, for the chance that like you create a good impression and you show up in a positive way, some can actually with you in a more powerful way because of that one on one or kind of that, like in person interaction.

So finding networking events is a little bit of just, are you going to invest time to go do some keyword searches? So there are, there are websites like which I know have changed a little bit now, but meetup. com. And as you meet people at an event, it shouldn't just be, okay, great, nice to meet you. It should be, Hey, you seem really great. What other events do you go to?

And you'll find out if the people that host and some more kind of niche events that you wouldn't know about unless you followed them on Instagram or saw it online, the local chamber tends to also have listings, so you can look up for can go to those those city websites to see what's listed there, but honestly, the best events that I've found are like finding the niche types of people that you want to connect with, seeing what type of businesses there are that cater to them.

generally look at their event pages or connect to people that at those places and ask them. Then the other area that I found some really good events on our coworking spaces. So if you're in Austin, Texas, capital factory has two events a day, pretty much nonstop. And those events might not always be the best. They, there are some that are amazing, but the people that go to them know about other events too.

So again, reiterating, like you have to talk to people to find out who is really the host, the hostess with the there is. Yeah,

If the goal is just being around people who you mutually enjoy, there's not so much pressure. With online, maybe you don't know the exact person you want to get a hold of, you know the type of person you want to get a hold of, and you know why. What are some strategies for a job seeker, someone wants to get in at a certain company, Or they want to meet people and just have a bigger network in general of maybe people in their same industry or job title, how do you do that online? Yeah,

I bet you someone in the marketing department from Nike is probably at that run. And I bet there's people at that run that also like running, which maybe you do, and are interested in sports like you do. And maybe also they have other contacts at companies. And so that's probably a better use of your time. And so let's say same target. I'm interested in working at Nike. It's not just about applying to a job and talking to a recruiter.

That is a standard traditional way of maybe getting into the company. It's about meeting people at that company and building relationships with them so that they know you and think about you when opportunities come up, or maybe even recognize your name push your application forwards, like what would happen, I imagine, let's say you're at the Nike run and you meet three people that work at Nike.

one of them is a recruiter and you apply to a job and they recognize your name and they go, Oh, that person's from the run. I'm going to push them forward and give them a call. The same thing happens when you're online. So oftentimes people try to go through the recruiter. They may if they even do any sort of networking, I'm like, Hey, I applied to this job. First mistake is when you're networking, you're not doing it for a job. You're doing it to build relationships.

So we talked about before, but you want to ask yourself like what relationship would be most beneficial to form to create for this job?

So if it's a position, I probably would target a director of marketing or a VP of marketing or CMO, whoever your boss would be, whoever, who's the person that you might be working for, or who's the person that would be like a skip level, like your boss's boss, or who might be someone that I might work with from a peer perspective, it appears not as, it's not as beneficial, but still can be great about learning about the company and building relationship and connecting.

And so even before any sort of outreach, you can engage on their profiles. You can find them on LinkedIn. You can like their posts. You can share one of them. You can comment. And what you're doing there is you're making yourself more familiar to the person. It's go to the same coffee shop every day and you see the same person, all of a sudden that person, like by the third day, you're probably nodding to them. By the seventh day, you're probably making a comment or a joke to them.

by the 13th day, you probably might even sit down and talk to them for a bit or exchange information if it's going well. So you got to think about that as well. When it comes to like online networking, how am I making myself more familiar? And since you're not just reaching out for a job, you're reaching out to learn about them and the company.

Your outreach is a very simple, very explicit, Hey your career path seems really neat, or Hey, your background seems really interesting, or Hey, I've always thought Nike was a really cool company because of X, Y, Z, it'd be great to connect and learn about your work, period, great to connect, be great to connect. Oftentimes people tend to make that first message or outreach a page long. No one's going to read that. They don't know you. They don't even think about this.

When you're building a relationship, how much time would someone invest in a stranger? Very minimal. So one or two sentences, how much time would someone invest in someone they've connected with? Maybe a little bit more, maybe two to four sentences. How much will someone read if you've had a phone call with them or they've replied a back and forth conversation with you a couple of times, probably a lot more, probably more willing to jump on the phone too.

So this is like a very high level overview of networking. We still haven't talked about, wow, how do you feel confident in networking? But I think it's important that we cover these tactics and so turn it over to you. To get your opinion on it, too.

So you wouldn't come up and say, Hey, I'm Dan. When I was 12 years old, I injured my knee running, but I got over it and then I got good grades and then I went to college and I studied this and then I might got my first job and it was really great, but I didn't like this. And then my girlfriend dumped me and I was really sad. So I was, Took some time off from work, but now I'm really not quite sure what to do. I have this current, right? Something like that.

And maybe that's not the best example, but I've seen a lot of messages, just like you said, or cover letters that are like telling your life story. And it's all the, usually it's the worst parts, not the best parts. And no, if you're at an event doing it the right way, you come up and you say. Hey Mark, I've been following Under Armour a long time, and I've seen how you've helped form the brand. I hope to do something as impactful someday. You've been an inspiration to me.

Would you ever Consider grabbing coffee. Can I buy you coffee and if you could share how you navigated your career, maybe at the point that I'm at right now, and any advice you have I would be so deeply grateful. Nothing like that. And something like that in a message, I think, goes a lot longer than telling your story.

If you're a job seeker they don't If you're talking about how you've been laid off or you're on the job search, all those things, they're going to know Oh, they want me to hire them. And I don't do that is going to be their thought unless they are like a recruiter or something. So approaching it with, I'd say complimenting them, not kissing up, but being like, basically you've done what I aspire to do and you've done it in such a way that I find really intriguing.

Would you consider spending some time with me to share your wisdom so that I can Maybe navigate my career in a more meaningful and strategic way.

And. And then also ask yourself, if you're talking to someone pretty high up and you're trying to get that, like informational session with them, compliments go very far. But at the same time, you want to make sure that when you're reaching out to someone and talking to them, that you're not making yourself like a lower status. Like you're not making it like that. It's a favor to talk to you. There are some people like a CEO of a company, maybe that's the case.

Maybe you're at a part of your professional world where that's the case. But if the person could just be your boss or maybe a peer, it's I bet we would have some interesting things to talk about. I'd love to learn more about your career path. I can be just a little careful about lowering your status.

Cause then what happens is you're only going to get people to say yes, that are interested in helping, like being a mentor and men generally, if you are being mentored, that person isn't considering you for a job because they see you as someone that isn't ready yet. And we want to make sure that we avoid the isn't ready yet perspective.

You just tell someone you're a student. It's like literally like a 95 percent probably success rate in getting people to talk to you because they want to help you. LinkedIn has started offering AI help. Be very careful. I've had some people I was working with a client the other day and he's I used AI and it was great. It made everything really fast. I'm like, okay, can I look at the messages? They were really bad. They, it was very formal. The English wasn't correct.

Very be very careful about using AI. At least you have to make sure that you edit it after you use it.

And I'm actually a pretty good speller. I have a pretty good handle on grammar.

On the English language that something like that will make your messages more professional, which we haven't talked about make sure you spell check and that you're not missing any apostrophes or periods or I am like the biggest user of the pregnant pause ever like the dash in my sense is anyone that's emailed with me is like probably oh my gosh dude use a period but Yeah, so for writing, for content, AI, it all looks the same. It's greetings fellow traveler. I am a what word do I see?

I am a distinguished marketing professional, right? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that would be my tip. Use Grammarly or whatever else is out there until they sponsor the show. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say use whoever, use Grammarly or whatever's better. But yeah. Yeah, make sure you get the messaging right. When I do stuff like that, I read it over, over and over and over. Sometimes I'll take a step away for a couple hours and come back. I'm not a natural, like sales pitch writer.

And so I think the simpler, the better, which is where I get hurt is I'll make it too long and I'll make it short and I'll struggle with what details to include what's enough detail to get a response without being too long. It's not my gift. So I think you can always run it through chat, GPT, see what. improvements it makes, if it can make it shorter or better, but Benjamin said, be really careful with stuff like that because it'll be hokey.

A little bit different of an outreach because for example, from a marketing leader, try to connect with a marketing leader. I'd say something along the lines like, Try to expand my network of marketing leaders in the X, Y, Z area, Austin area. That's it. That's your outreach. If that person connects with you and doesn't respond, then you can follow up and be like, To be connected, really interested in your background. It'd be great to have a quick chat. Very simple.

You don't have to promote yourself. You don't have to say anything. If you actually, if you're on LinkedIn, they see your profile. So make sure your profile is up to date. Now, if this is like an actual you're like, Hey, try to expand my network in, in marketing companies, like maybe it's a company or an industry found your pro found your profile through a LinkedIn search would be great to connect. Simple very short very sweet. You're not selling yourself.

If you start selling yourself, you start coming off as salesy. If you come off as salesy, someone's going to think that you want something. If you want, if someone thinks you want something, they're not going to talk to you. It's. they think that it's a transaction, even if they know, Oh, this person's probably looking for a job by focusing on the relationship and by showing up by focusing on the relationship, you're going to increase the chances of that message converts.

And so you get from, like for me, if someone sent me something like, how does this look? I'd give some notes and say, that looks great. Be positive and you say what I like about it, blah, blah, blah. I don't know, CEO or someone who's really busy at a big company. Like the response, like that's great. And that would be it.

And so integrating some of that into your messaging, I think does help not, you want to make sure you're not being rude or short, but just like Benjamin said, like reaching out and just being like something, it'd be great to connect. Found you on a search. It'd be great to. Chat about this thing. You talked about making sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date. One thing really quick, make sure your work history is up to date.

If one of the things I'd notice, which maybe I'm too nitpicky, but if you've worked for companies that have profiles on LinkedIn, make sure Your work history is connected with the real company and not like an old fake version or not fake like old version with no photo. It really does make it your profile just it enriches it for whatever reason. And then for your photo, if it's old or dorky, like the simplest thing I coach people on this.

You can typically get headshots in your area for a hundred bucks for a couple like corporate headshots, maybe 200. If you can't do that, or you don't have time, just put on your out work outfit, have someone grab their cell phone, go outside and just put on portrait mode, get some trees behind you or mountains or whatever. And just take 50 pictures, just go all over the place. And one of them will turn out. Better than what you have on there.

If it's like a clipped picture of you at Christmas or you at a wedding or you out at the bars with your friends where there happened to be a professional photographer or like a nice camera, taking pictures of everyone at like the club. Do that. Update it, make it look nice, smile or do your pose not having a photo. I think if you don't have a photo, no one will. typically respond to you.

Like it's just how it works and having a decent looking photo, iPhones or Samsung Galaxies, whatever else these days, especially portrait mode. They take like as good of a picture basically as a DSLR. A lot of it's just lighting in like the, having good lighting around you. Those little things will add up where if you have a LinkedIn.

With no picture or kind of a lousy picture and it's one job in your work experience it looks like a an empty town or like an empty room Like it doesn't seem like either you care or that you even use LinkedIn When I've seen profiles like that if I need to contact someone and I see that I'm just like this person doesn't use LinkedIn or like they seem like a who runs this? It's like an odd stranger, right?

So those are little things you can do that I think will help at least personalize you a little bit, humanize you, and make it seem like you're taking this whole thing seriously.

You will seem desperate. You will not seem like a professional. So please timing is very important. Let's say they do connect with you and then your next and they don't respond. The message would just be something along the lines of, Hey, just pinging this up the inbox.

People do that to me and I've started doing it myself. It doesn't bother me at all. It's thanks for the reminder. And so if you sent a followup message and I think it's a, it's feels natural to follow up and reiterate your first message. Hey, this is really important to me. Wanted to see if maybe you're available next week, blah, blah, blah. Instead of that saying, Hey, surfacing this to the top of your inbox, by the way, if it works better for you, my email address is dah.

Look forward to connecting. Or you could say, Hey if LinkedIn isn't where you communicate, shoot me an email at this address and we can get connected. So maybe giving them another option and maybe they'll copy and paste that. Maybe they'll just reply to the message, but I like to live in my email inbox. That's probably going away, but I will I will die at the email inbox. I don't even text. I don't email friends, but I'm not even big into texting.

It's email me and I'm on it anywhere else and I'm probably gonna lose track of it because I'm busy and it's just not my workflow. So let's close with you, you get the meeting, right? This person talks to you on Zoom or in person, you meet for a coffee. I'll offer my piece of advice on like following up and maintaining the relationship and I'd like to hear from you as well. So maybe it's a short term effort, right? Hey, like you're looking for a job and you're trying to connect with people.

Let's say that you are reaching out and you're playing a little bit more of the long game. What I think is really effective in networking, especially with people who are maybe a couple rungs ahead of you is they don't want you to bring them all your problems. They don't want you to send them a question even every month. I don't think if they invite you like, Hey, I'd like to be your mentor. Let's meet for coffee once a month. That's different.

What I've done is when I ask people for advice, whether it's on LinkedIn or in person or anywhere else, they give me some time, some feedback. I follow up, whether it be a month or three months later, and I share how their insight impacted my results. And people really like that. Because it says that you listened, you did what they said, and then you're following up, right? You're just telling them here's how it worked out.

See, if they share this stuff with you, and they ha would, if they happen to follow up with you, and hey, how'd it go, and you're like, hey, look, I never really got to it, I'm really busy, I've got a lot going on, it's I gave you an hour of my time or 30 minutes, or I give you my best insight. And that's not happening again. But if you follow up in short term, couple of weeks, long term, it could be a month or two, and I would just say, Hey, so appreciate your time. I took your advice.

I did what you shared and here's what happened because of that. Dot like 3. Thank you so much. Really appreciate our friendship, Matthew. Something like that. That's very rewarding to people who give time. And that also, I think it's the thank you and all of that. It also leaves you in a good spot.

If you do want to follow up with that person again, whether it be in the near future or long term, you've returned the favor, at least in a way of showing, That you appreciate it and that their advice works. That would be my one piece for networking that might not apply to every situation, if someone helped you get a job, it would be perfect. You fall up and say, Hey, I've been in this role for I'm at four weeks now, this wouldn't have happened because of you. I can't tell you how grateful I am.

Your friend, Matthew, for other things that might not work, if obviously if they don't apply to reply to you or you don't really get anywhere. But overall, that is my strategy to keep those things warm. And if you need to ask another favor later, you're in a really good spot.

You could even just say, I really appreciate the last time we talked. It really still resonates with me. I think about it pretty regularly. Hope you're doing well. Cheering you on. Even something like that.

You do have to cast a wider net. And if the person at Nike doesn't get back to you, my advice would be, think, say, screw it. I'm going to, who's their top competitor. I'm going to ask that person's advice. If they don't get back to you, you say, who's Adidas top competitor. I'm going to reach out to Under Armour. And. Overall don't be discouraged. You won't get a response to every message. And if you send one message, you're in my opinion, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Now don't be a spammer. Don't message a hundred people. But don't think of this as one message is going to get me the result or one outreach is going to get me the result I need. And don't take it personally if they don't respond. It doesn't mean they hate you. It doesn't mean they don't want to help. It's just maybe it wasn't the exact right time for them. And maybe you've been in the same spot in your life. Maybe a friend help ask you to help them move and you didn't make it right.

That doesn't mean you hate them or that you never want to help anyone. Maybe it just wasn't the right time for you to do the thing that someone asked you to do. Don't get discouraged by that. Keep a broader view. Think big, right? Think of competitors or people in the same industry, other people you can reach out to, or you can think of other people at the same company or think about Mutual connections you have Hey, I'm trying to get ahold of John at Nike.

I saw that you worked there for three years. Do you happen to know anyone that knows him or have any advice on getting in contact with him? Something like that. So it doesn't always have to be direct to the source. It can also be contacting people, LinkedIn tells you who you're mutually connected to, what your degrees of connection are. So those are things that you, so that you don't get obsessed or hyper focused on one thing that will set you up for.

I think disappointment, if you approach it with one person, one or two messages, and that's it.