Making Your Networking Relationships Stick

Anita Brick: Hi, this Anita Brick and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today, we're delighted to be speaking to Diane Darling, who is the founder of Effective Networking and author of the Networking Survival Guide and Networking for Career Success, which have been translated into seven languages. She has appeared on the NBC Nightly News and has been in the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and has taught at Harvard Business School, MIT, the London School of Economics, and several other universities.

She is a member of the Chief Executives Club of Boston, and a founding member of 2020 Women on Board, an organization advocating for women serving on corporate boards, which is a whole other topic, but one that is a very, very great interest to alumni and students. Diane, thank you for making the time to do this today.

Diane Darling: Thank you. My pleasure to be here.

Anita Brick: So we had a lot of questions. Let's jump in with one. The universal question from a lot of students has happened to come from an exec MBA student time being always a precious commodity. What is your thought process on how to arrive at and in what proportion the right balance between time spent networking and doing actual work? I thought that was a really interesting question. Today we're talking about making those relationships stick. How much time do you spend? Not just networking and initiating, but actually building and cultivating those relationships?

Diane Darling: I love this question because the reality is so many people do not give themselves credit for networking because they don't think about what they're doing as networking. In my humble opinion, if you're working and you're working with people well and you're easy to work with and you show up on time and you do what you're asked to do.

People don't think about that as networking, and I do, and here's why. You're building a relationship all the time. To me, it's not offered. It's hybrid now and it always has been. But people really haven't given themselves credit for this. Having said that, there are times when you need to go into a scenario outside of work because you don't want to be head down at your desk all the time. I think in many cases, people need to step back and say, what am I doing to build rapport? Because that matters.

Anita Brick: Yeah, and I think there are a lot of questions that really talk about that. In fact, one evening a student said, how do we end a conversation on a good note and achieve the following? Number one, keep a scope wide for the next meeting and to get to the next person who can be even more helpful.

There's volumes in that question to me. What would you suggest that someone does? Once you have that first contact, actually make it desirable for the person to connect with you.

Diane Darling: Again, one thing that you want to do is you want to have a system to manage your contacts, and that's incredibly important. I use an online tool called Insightly. There's a free version of it that's great. What I do when I put data in is I put in the contact information, email, etc. phone number I put in the date, I meet them and I have a field, a custom field called met where because then I can do a search and then you can queue it up to have it send you reminders.

Touch base with this person. I also really like it because it connects with Evernote, and I keep a lot of articles in Evernote that I can send out to people. So what I do is I have three templates that I've created that are tools I use when I meet somebody. So the first thing I do is I'm trying to think about what's the next thing with this person.

So I kind of put them into three buckets. One is that it was a nice conversation. That's it. So that template is. Dear Anita, I enjoyed seeing you the other evening at the booth events. Look forward to crossing paths again in the future. In my signature I have my LinkedIn link. So then if you want to find out more about me, then you can go to my LinkedIn link.

The second template I have is Anita. I really enjoyed our conversation. I promised you I was going to send you three pieces of information on, you know, whatever it might be, a little spin out here. A lot of people focus only on work. About a year or so ago, I was doing a project in my apartment. I can't tell you how many people start talking about painters and you bond over something like that.

So don't think it only has to be about work. So I have that as a second template. Then the third one is Anita. I really enjoyed our conversation. Let's continue the dialog. Here are three times that work for me. Do these work for you. And it goes into action where I actually set up the next meeting. You want to have some sort of a system and nothing against your brain, but your brain has so many things going on these days.

Why make it complicated? Just find a system and then queue it up. And then I think once a quarter touch base with people. I remember meeting you at such and such. You can use a tool like MailChimp to have, you know, kind of create a newsletter or that sort of thing and say, you know, here are some of my favorite articles I've read recently or things I want to share with you, or my book list for the summer.

I always have a situation where people can opt out, but I would put so much pressure on myself thinking it's got to turn into something because it's always an ongoing situation. The second part of the question I think is important is not to think about who is more helpful, because I can tell you, it really aggravates me when I make an introduction.

And then I'm considered not as helpful because I didn't actually give them the business, really being very mindful of the people who are those connectors.

Anita Brick: Totally agree. That was the thing that struck me about that question: who could be more helpful? What does that mean when you have that first conversation? It's so important to anchor that because not everybody feels comfortable being super helpful and handing over connections or introductions when they first meet us, it may take them time to really develop trust, looking out for who's better without paying attention to the person at hand.

This goes along with another question that seems to come up a lot. This one is also from an executive MBA student. The question is I have the initial conversation. It seems to go well. At least I think it goes well. It sounds like they do what you suggested. I send a follow up email and suggest a time because we talked about getting together again, and I never hear from the person and I follow up a couple more times.

I never hear back. Radio silent. How do you know that you've actually created a connection to begin with? Like, what are things you can do in that first encounter so that you've at least solidified it enough that the person is actually looking forward to hearing from you?

Diane Darling: Again, one is, who's doing most of the talking? Are you doing most of the talking? I find a lot of really, really smart people get into sales mode instead of rapport mode. I'm going to be polite and I'm going to listen to somebody for a little while, but I'm going to guess that they're going to think it's been an engaging conversation and it's been pleasant, but they haven't put themselves in that top tier.

And the reason why is that in many cases, they don't necessarily come across that they're interested in the other person. They're more just interested in themselves. And people can read that. And because we're so time starved these days, people begin to filter that out. And then comes an email afterwards, it again just reiterates it's about them. The subject line of an email should be all about what's in it for the other person.

That subject line has to be, here's the three things I promised I would give to you. You can't give to somebody if you haven't listened. And I find sometimes very, very talented, highly smart people try to get into a sales mode instead of just relaxing and having a nice conversation. You got to do some listening. And that's why in some cases you can't say yes to everything.

Good networking is a quality game, not a quantity game. When I see you on LinkedIn or whatever it is, I've got 50,000 people on my LinkedIn. I'm like, no you don't. That's a database. Those are not relationships.

Anita Brick: There's a very strong focus and emphasis on talking to this person. I'm going to have a limited amount of time. I should get as much as I can during that time. And I think it's a little misguided. And in fact, there was an evening student who said, Diane, when networking for an internship or a full time job, when in the process, is it ideal to get to the point and ask the question, how do I get the job? That's what a lot of people are thinking, though. How long do I need to listen and have to, like, chitchat? Until I can get to the point? And I think it goes back to when do you have a relationship? What advice would you give this person?

Diane Darling: So a couple different things. This one, I don't think it's a secret that you're looking for a job, so don't pretend that's not there. Getting to the point. There is no getting to something. It's there. It's in the room already. So one is that just don't put so much pressure on yourself about that. The other part about it is I do find highly intelligent people who complicate small talk.

They don't understand that it's a rapport building thing. Where do you overlap? How might we know each other? What could we possibly talk about? What's the rapport that we have doesn't necessarily mean we have two immediate burps on our credentials. You know, as you're having a nice conversation, say, you know, obviously I'm here at a booth alumni thing, I'm in school, I'm going for a job in the fall. What would be some recommendations you would have or what were some learnings you'd like to share? People like sharing advice.

Anita Brick: They do.

Diane Darling: Yeah, I think they like sharing advice more than they like to be put on the hot seat. Who do you know?

Anita Brick: Oh no question, because it goes back to if someone doesn't know you and they don't necessarily have that rapport or that trust hasn't been built, if you ask for too much too soon, ultimately you send them away, right? And you will get radio silence. Good. Still question from it a lot. This is representative of not just this one person who asks the question, but I would guess it's representative of thousands and thousands of people because I've heard this many, many times.

So the alum said, I don't know if it's me or if it's that the people that I meet aren't interested in helping me. I'm able to create networking friendships, I think maybe acquaintances here, but as far as getting the others to actually assist me, it's not going well. In fact, they often expect me to do something for them. Yeah. Could you please help me?

Diane Darling: So one thing I think that's important is that people cannot read our minds. So we have to be very clear. And it's helpful when someone says it's clear. You know, you said, Diane, I want to do this call. Here's the date, here's the time, here's some prep. It's clear those people are not necessarily helpful and you want them to be helpful. You're shopping for milk at a hardware store.

Anita Brick: Are you saying that it's the wrong people? I mean, but if it's happening over and over again, don't you think it kind of has to be that other person too? Because if it happens once in a while, that's one thing. But if it becomes a pattern to me, there's got to be something in how he's asking. If he's asking for too much too soon.

It feels like there's a pattern here. No one really wants to help you. What do you think are some of the issues that could be the problem? The barriers? Maybe it's them, but I have no control over that. Maybe it's me. What questions should he be asking himself to see where he might be?

Diane Darling: The barrier. So I would say the questions he should be asking himself is if it's working at all, what's he doing differently to those people? One to if it's working at all, who are those people? Is there a different relationship? Is there a different rapport? Part of me wants to say welcome to life, and I don't mean that unkindly, but life is about a lot of rejection.

There's a lot of things that don't work where I would probably spend the most amount of time coaching someone like that. I would be saying, why are you letting this absorb your energy? Let's find what is working. I get it that it's not, and I think it's worthwhile to ask those questions. It also may be that going through coaching with, you know, you or whoever else it is, is there a blind spot?

Is there something that isn't working? I do find in some cases people do ask way too much, too fast. Without a relationship. There needs to be somebody who's willing to sit down with this person and dissect this into several pieces. And what is working, what isn't working, you know, what's the overlap? Is there something funny with the connection?

When people say to me, people are ignoring my email, I'm like, try something else. Send them a handwritten note, posted stamps to me, or the silver bullet that we've overlooked for a while. I get hold of people when I write them a handwritten note. Nine times out of ten, if I send them an email, it gets down to the bottom of the box or the next page of the email within a few hours.

Anita Brick: It is good because he needs to look at other things and he also needs to look at himself. That's good advice. So let's say a brand new relationship. This is from an evening student and the person said, how do you go about turning an initial connection into a mentor?

Diane Darling: I've been very blessed to have some wonderful mentors. Those are rarely from initial connections. There's a lot in between. You can't really go out and say, Will you be my mentor without a lot in between? So I think that person is setting themselves up for disappointment. I think it is fine for you to say, you know, after initial conversation, what's your top two things you advise evening students who are trying to juggle a day life and school or something like that.

Anita Brick: The smaller the ask and the more specific the asked, the easier it is. But along with that, along with that last question, what are appropriate ways to follow up with a person who has many people clamoring for time on their calendar? That's also from an evening student, and I think that's a big thing. You know, the people who are in desirable industries, desirable functions, desirable companies get a lot of people who ask for their time.

How do you differentiate yourself when you reach out to someone? And it could be, as the person said, you know, is it the method? Is it the timing? What can help you rise above all that noise?

Diane Darling: Well, one thing is you want to have a very compelling request. Anita, I'd like ten minutes of your time. The reason I like ten minutes of your time is bullet one, bullet two, bullet three. Here's a conference call number. Here's three times that work for me. I have made this so easy for you to say. Yes, that time works. Or gosh, if nothing else, dying is organized enough versus Anita, can I stop by and get to know you sometime? Right.

Anita Brick: But some people do that. You do.

Diane Darling: A really busy person gets a lot done by managing their time. So when you replicate that in, you show you manage your time and respect theirs, you're more likely to get a yes. I also will go back to the same thing is don't do all of this on email. It's just too much. And they have assistants and they have people who are feeling this stuff.

If they have an assistant. The assistant is your best friend, your new best friend. Find out the name of their dog. I have the name of their kids. Get to know them. I have a field in Insightly for the assistant, and so you want to be able to have a really good way of keeping track and again, handwrite a note.

If nothing else, just simply say, I enjoyed meeting you. I know you're very busy. I'd like to ask for ten minutes. And here's why I interviewed the CEO of Ernst and Young on his career path, and that came out when I put my foot in my mouth badly. I was at the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year awards in California years ago.

I'm at the Woman's cocktail reception. I was the guest of somebody, so she's getting her picture taken with all of the previous nominees. I'm standing there as an outsider because I'm not a nominee, not going to get my picture taken. And there's a man standing there and I'm like, oh, well, bless his heart. He's, you know, left out too, because he's a guy.

I'll go up to him and just be friendly and say hi. And I said, hi. What's your connection to the event? You know, I'm a guest of one of the nominees. And he looks at me and smiles and he says, I'm the CEO of Ernst and Young.

Anita Brick: Well, then, yeah, you get to.

Diane Darling: Be here, then that works for you, you know, and I was note to myself, I always look for pictures of the CEO before you go to any event in the future. In the course of that, we were just sitting there having a conversation and I said, so, you know, how long have you been there? And I don't know.

And, you know, where were you before? And he started doing books at a Sunday school. He offered to do the money in his Sunday school. And then the person, the treasurer at the Sunday school said, oh, you do a really good job of organizing all of this. Do you want a summer job? And that's his career path into being the CEO of Ernst and Young. But he gave me, I think, 20 minutes, and I met him downtown and it's because I said it in California. Could I ever talk to you more? And he said, yes. And so I called the assistant and she said, you know, let me check and get you on the calendar and, you know, filter saying I was perfectly expecting.

And no, she calls back and says, yes, here's the time. And here I am going to the top floor of Times Square, giving me 20 minutes. That was incredibly memorable. And I wrote a column about that. People will give you their time if you're respectful about it, and you're also specific about what you want.

Anita Brick: Absolutely. I totally agree with that.

Diane Darling: And another one I asked him for advice. Are there any mistakes? What's something that bugs you? And he said, one thing that bugs me the most is when someone says they want to talk about my philanthropy or the philanthropy of Ernst and Young and they really want a job. And he said, that just makes me crazy. They go off to air and, you know, with a red flag, I think it's true.

Anita Brick: It goes back to what we've been talking about all along. You need to be a human being. You need to be authentic. You need to be sincere because we want to work with people. We want to buy from people. We want to build relationships that stick with people that we like. This is not rocket science, but it's something that seems to be challenging for people because in a lot of cases, there is so much at stake. Do you have time for one more question? Absolutely. So we like to get really concrete and really practical, just like we were telling others that they should be when they reach out. What are three things you would advise someone who wants to develop relationships that actually start?

Diane Darling: Think of relationships as fine dining. It's slow and it takes time. There may be courses you don't understand, or maybe food you don't recognize, but think of it as fine dining. Good relationships are like fine dining, and that's one two. I also think you don't do fine dining every night. There's only so much time you have to actually do, you know, maybe the formal type of networking, you know, the informal of being good at the office or something else completely.

And then I think the third part would be to appreciate the informal, random networking that you're doing. Appreciate knowing the name of the assistant, appreciate being on time for a year's projects. Appreciate volunteering at your kid's school. Those are ways for people to know you in different ways and see you in different areas. I'm always amazed when I'm working with a senior executive who has no philanthropy, or has not been on any committees, professionally or a part of a trade association in their industry.

It just amazes me. And there was one person I coached a couple of years ago who wanted to switch gears, and had no connections outside of the office. Well, I've been busy being a CFO and I'm like, there's something missing here. You do have to be very mindful of that. Yeah, those are my three.

Anita Brick: You know, I really appreciate it. This is a very, very tricky, uncomfortable role for many people to do. And being able to make it very clear and concrete, sometimes it's a very fine line to go from the first connection to having it be the last connection, or the first connection being the beginning of developing a relationship. I appreciate your insight and wisdom and am very, very grateful that you made the time.

Diane Darling: No, you're so welcome. And you know, one thing along the lines of what you just said is that this isn't math. You know, it's people. We can talk about concrete, but, you know, relationships aren't necessarily that. So what works for one doesn't work for somebody else. Find systems that work for you. I think one of the things that's nice with the online is that we kind of have what I call hybrid networking, where you blend both on and off, and I can reach people in ways that I may or may not in person.

Anita Brick: Good point. Well, I wish you a great rest of the week. And again, thank you so much for doing this, and I look forward to chatting with you sometime very, very soon.

Diane Darling: Look forward to it. I need to thank you again and.

Anita Brick: Thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCafe at the Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.