Do you know what the right networking attitude sounds like?
As I was talking with networking expert and public speaker, Julie Brown, all I could think was, “if only more people had her networking attitude, they would do it so much better.”
So this is your opportunity to absorb Julie’s voice and through it her enthusiasm and excitement and especially her detachment about networking into your own brain.
You don’t have to be like her, but you certainly can think like her if the way you think isn’t really getting you where you want to go.
And here’s the baby step Julie suggests: pick 3 people in your network who you can ask for a strategic introduction – who would be a good connection for you. Because this is one of the easiest things to do – reach out to someone you know and ask for a connection.
So listen here (and below) and learn.
And if you like what you hear, we’d love it if you write a review, subscribe here and sign up for Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor.
Read the complete transcript of Episode #482
ilise benun
Hi there. This is ilise benun, your Marketing Mentor. And this is the podcast for you if, and only if, you are ready to leave the feast or famine syndrome behind, and I mean for good.
I hope you know by now that one of the three essential marketing tools for creative professionals and, of course, included in my Simplest Marketing Plan, is networking. And you really can never learn enough about networking, including me. So today's episode is especially about the sound of the right networking attitude, because as I was talking with networking expert and public speaker, Julie Brown, all I could think was: if only more people had her networking attitude, they would do it so much better.
So this is your opportunity to absorb Julie's voice—and through it, her enthusiasm and excitement and especially her detachment about networking—into your own brain. You don't have to be like her, but you can certainly think like her, if the way you think isn't really getting you where you want to go. So listen and learn.
Hello, Julie. Welcome to the podcast.
Julie Brown
Oh, well, hi. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here.
ilise benun
Excellent. Please introduce yourself.
Julie Brown
Well, I am Julie Brown and I am a networking expert and coach and professional speaker. I'm an author. I wrote a networking book. And I also, like yourself, am a podcast host, so I also have a podcast online, “Networking and Business Development.”
ilise benun
Awesome. What does it mean to be a networking expert?
Julie Brown
Well, the definition of “expert” is you have to do something for 10,000 hours.
ilise benun
That's right.
Julie Brown
So I think that's the actual definition: is after you do something for 10,000 hours, you can call yourself “an expert.”
For me, as a networking expert, you know, I had spent 17 years doing business development in large corporations. So business development, I was doing all through networking and relationship building and information gathering. And that was in process. I was becoming an expert doing it for those 17 years. And then when I went out on my own seven years ago, as a consultant and as a speaker, was when I started calling myself “an expert.” I had been doing it for 17 years, and now I had all of the tools to help people become networking experts in their own right. Or not even become a networking expert, but actually, just getting comfortable with it and using networking as a way to change their careers.
ilise benun
The reason I'm focusing on the word “expert” is because a lot of people really struggle with the idea of being an expert or becoming an expert or feeling like an expert. And so I'm curious how you think about the word “expert.” And seven years ago when you went out on your own, did you feel like an expert and therefore called yourself one? Or did you not so much feel like it, but called yourself that anyway? How did you deal with that?
Julie Brown
No, I don't think I felt like an expert. I took this 17 years of experience that I had. And then I continued to learn and I read a lot about networking and I did studies on networking and I read other people's studies and I continued to evolve as an expert. So I don't think calling yourself “an expert” means you're done learning.
I think experts always are continually learning and that's why they're so good at what they do. So I'll never stop studying relationships or studying rooms of people or studying how people connect. I think when you are an expert, it doesn't mean you're done learning. Your learning just gets deeper and more broad.
ilise benun
I love that. So listeners: anyone who is learning and loves learning can call yourself “an expert.”
Julie Brown
I mean, I think if we're going to go back to the technical term of ‘10,000 hours’ ...
I do this with my clients a lot. I'm like: “Have you been working on your career for 10 years, or whatever?”
And they're like: “Yeah.”
I'm like: “Okay, you are an expert in this career. Walk into whatever room or meeting or event with the confidence that you are an expert.”
ilise benun
Right, confidence, that's a big issue also. Maybe we'll come back to that. But I want to focus on networking because it really gets a bad rap, and I wonder if you know why?
Julie Brown
Well, I think there's a lot of reasons why it gets a bad rap. I would start with the idea that some people probably have this antiquated idea of what networking is—and it's you go into a room with a bunch of people you don't know, and you're not very strategic about the room, and you're supposed to talk and have small talk and learn what people do. Ask, “What do you do?” And give away as many business cards as you can and gather as many business cards as you can. And then all of a sudden, that’s supposed to build business.
And that is why it gets such a bad rap, because networking is not about ... I love networking events, but networking is so much more than going to events and trying to meet people.
It is the entire process of understanding who you should be connected with, how you can be a good connection to somebody, how you can really be friends and build relationships with people, how you can be a good part of another person's network, how you can help each other, how you can be invested in other people's success and, therefore, they're invested in your success.
I think we look at networking from a very, very antiquated way of doing it, which was, back then, that's what you would do. You would go into rooms and you would just talk and you would have meaningless conversations just so you could trade business cards and, hopefully, follow up.
ilise benun
So you've kind of implied a definition of what it is in everything you've said so far. But do you have a formal definition, if someone asks you: “What is networking, anyway, Julie”?
Julie Brown
No, I don't ever create, like, this is the cut-and-dry definition of networking. Networking, for me, is continually meeting new people so I can foster relationships, all the while maintaining and strengthening the relationships I already have.
ilise benun
That seems doable. And you've used the word, “connection,” several times already so far in this conversation. So what is connection and how does that relate to networking?
Julie Brown
So there's a famous quote that “people do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust.” And so how do we get to know, like and trust?
It's understanding your connections. It's understanding what you have in common that makes you like each other. It's understanding what you do differently that you can respect each other for your differences. It's connecting on so many different levels.
So for me, the old way of doing networking was you would connect purely on what you do for a living—which when you think about it, as us as 360-degree individuals, is such a small sliver of our existence, when we are much more diverse and colorful human beings. Like, why wouldn't we connect ... Why wouldn't we increase the surface area with which we could connect with people?
So I use that word, “connection,” in a lot of different ways. It's: can we increase the surface area with which we connect with people where we're not just talking about work, where we're getting to know them as a human? Can we make as many connections as possible so that we have a wide, deep, broad network that serves us and that we can serve them as well? I think the word, “connection,” is really powerful because there's a lot of different parts of it as far as networking goes.
ilise benun
And do you connect with everyone you meet?
Julie Brown
No. I mean, it would be impossible to have a relationship with every single person that I meet, but I do a really, really good job of staying in touch with my network. And I know we'll talk about marketing, but my marketing does a lot of my connecting for me because my marketing is so personal and it reaches so many people that when I connect with somebody for the first time, and maybe we are not going to ever see each other again because I'm on a stage and they're in the audience, but they come up to me afterwards. If they get on my newsletter or if they follow me on LinkedIn or connect with me on LinkedIn or listen to my podcast, that is a way of me constantly being a part of their life. They're hearing my voice. They're seeing my likeness. If it's on my videos, they're learning about things that happen to me every week, or if they're on my newsletter ... my marketing does a lot of my social connecting for me.
ilise benun
So it sounds like your way of thinking about connecting means that you can be connecting with people without actually knowing it, about each specific connection or each specific person, because I think people get really caught up in, well, how am I going to stay connected to all these people if I meet them? But if you've got this broader marketing process and plan and other tools—content marketing tools it sounds like you're using a lot also—to stay in touch and stay connected to people, then that is doing a lot of the keeping in touch.
Julie Brown
Yeah. And I want to just make a point that when we look at our network, every person in our network is at a different stage of a relationship with us. The strength of that relationship is different for every single person in your network.
It would be impossible, it would be impossible to have every single person you know be your best friend. Be your what I call “in my top five” as far as networking goes. Be a part of your top five—the people that you talk to multiple times a week, that you're always asking questions of and tossing out information to, or asking strategic introductions from. It would be impossible for all the people that you know to be at the same strength of relationships, which is why it's so wonderful that our networks can be broad and we can have really, really, really close relationships, and then we can have acquaintances, and then we can have distant connections, and then we can even have dormant connections that come and go throughout our career.
I think people get caught up because, like you said, they're like, “How am I going to maintain all of these relationships?” Those relationships are at different strengths and are maintained at different times in different ways.
ilise benun
I think that makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned that you love networking events.
Julie Brown
I do.
ilise benun
What do you love about networking events? Don't you find them awkward sometimes or some of those conversations awkward?
Julie Brown
Well, yes, they can be, but I love networking events because I know that if I go to a networking event, I'm going to meet somebody I've never met before.
And I have this line, and I think you've seen me speak, that I have this line that I use a lot, that the people you meet will change your life, and networking is how you meet those people.
And I cannot tell you how many times I've walked into a room full of strangers and met somebody who has changed my life in a way that was unexpected, whether they introduced me to someone who became my best friend, or they introduced me to someone who became a really, really important part of my network, or they hired me to come and talk to their company. I look at every networking event as a way for me to meet somebody who can change my life or my career.
ilise benun
Yeah, actually, so now you're making me think of the people I've met at networking events who have indeed changed my life. And I remember one of the very first networking events I went to, in, I think it was 1988 in New York. It was a women in business event that I was dragged to. I didn't even know what networking was, at the time. But I had decided I was going to be a professional organizer. And so I went to this event and someone asked me what I do, and so I said, “I'm a professional organizer,” which I, of course, thought I had made up. But she said, “Oh, you should know about the National Association of Professional Organizers.” And so I actually got involved on the ground floor of the New York Chapter that was just starting, and the people I met through that organization changed my life. And so if that person hadn't mentioned that organization in that moment, who knows where I would be today?
Julie Brown
I love that story because it also goes to show that you can be the person that changes somebody else's life with something that you say. And you might not even notice. You might not even recognize that, that piece of advice you gave is going to be a pivotal piece of advice that, that person's going to carry through their career.
ilise benun
And actually, that makes me think of something else I've been thinking about lately, which is how my experience of anything is different from your experience of that exact same thing. So for example, this podcast, I'm sure it's going to be awesome; it's already awesome. But you know, maybe I'm having a bad day, and I just walked through a pile of glass while I was walking my dog, and she was pooping at the same time, and that put me in a bad mood, and I was just like, get me home.
And I bring that to our conversation and maybe when I hang up, I'll be like, all right, that wasn't my best effort. But you might think that was awesome. And how in a networking event, also, when you feel like, oh my God, this is really awkward or I can't think of anything to say, that may not be the experience of the other person either. What do you think of that?
Julie Brown
Nobody judges you as much as you judge yourself. And nobody's thinking as hard about you as you are thinking about yourself. That's one thing I've learned. I mean, even on a totally different note, I email a lot of people and I'm waiting for responses, and when I don't hear back, I always have to tell myself: it's not about me. They have a life on the other side of that email that I've no idea what's going on.
ilise benun
Right.
Julie Brown
But you brought up a good point of, sometimes people think this is really awkward, like, I don't know what to talk about.
And I love telling people that they are allowed to talk about life at networking events, because we think we're only supposed to talk about business: “Oh, what do you do? Oh, tell me more about that.” When I've already mentioned that I would want to increase the surface area with which we get to know people so we can get to know, like and trust faster.
And so I created this thing called the “list yourself approach,” which is, literally, just making a list of all the things that make you “you.” But you're not allowed to put what you do for a living on it. And not that you can't talk about what you do for a living, but I don't want it to be the only thing that you talk about.
So I want you to go into networking events prepared to talk about life. Prepared to talk about that you have a dog, and I have a dog, and we can connect over that and all the other things that we have in common. Or maybe the things that we don't have in common that I can learn from you.
And when we have these more human-centric conversations, it endears us to the people more. And I have a lot of people that I coach that say: “Oh, but I never know how to follow up after I meet somebody at a networking event.” And I always say to them: “If you had had a human-centric conversation with them, the follow-up just happens on its own because you write an email the next day and you say, “I'm so, so excited that we met. I'm so excited about this conversation we had. When I got home, I looked this up and I thought this article might be interesting to you. I can't wait to hear what you think about it. I can't wait to learn more about you to see if there's possibilities for collaboration in the future because you are the exact kind of person I like to work with.” That's easy follow up. That doesn't happen unless you get to know that person a little bit more than just beyond what do you do.
ilise benun
And this conversation is happening because you followed up with me after we met in Nashville at HOW Design Live.
Julie Brown
Right. Exactly.
ilise benun
How do you make sure that you get to your follow-up? Do you have a formula or a process that you teach or that you implement for yourself?
Julie Brown
Well, I don't have a set formula or a system where I'm like: this is Julie Brown's system for follow up.
But, whenever I'm traveling to conferences in which I know I'm going to be meeting a number of people at one time, I make sure that the day after the conference, I clear my calendar the day after the conference, at least in the morning, so that I can send thoughtful follow-up right after that conference.
There's a debate now, like, “Oh, are business cards a thing?”
ilise benun
I was going to ask you about that.
Julie Brown
I keep business cards and I ask people for business cards because that is a part of my structured follow up, where I ask people for a business card. It's weird, I've never smoked, but I have a cigarette holder, and the reason why I have a cigarette holder is because it's big and I can fit a lot of stuff in it. It's bigger than just a business card holder. So I put everything in that gold case, and then the day after the conference, I open that case up and I go through.
And another thing I should mention is, when I meet somebody and they give me their business card, I make a note on the back, like: this is where we met, this is what we talked about. So that when I get back, I have that easily remembered conversation. If they don't have a business card, and so say they have a QR code for their LinkedIn, so we'll connect on LinkedIn at the conference.
LinkedIn's great because it has a chronological order of the people that you've connected with. So I just go into my messages in LinkedIn and message everybody that I connected with at that conference with a personal note about what we talked about: so excited to stay connected on LinkedIn and learn more about them and follow their career and all that stuff. So those are my two major ways that I follow up right after an event.
Now, 80% of building and maintaining relationships is just following up. And doing it right after an event is great. But then you have to think about: Okay, what is my continued follow-up?
So I just make sure that I keep a database of the people that I meet, and LinkedIn makes it easier for us if they're active on LinkedIn to see what they're doing and comment. But if they're not, then you have to actually go into your database and say: Okay, it's been three months since I met them at this conference. I'm going to send them a message and see how they're doing.
So you do have to make sure that that is on top of mind, and that you have the initiative to do that because ‘action’ and ‘intention’ are two different things.
ilise benun
Okay. So that's making me think about confidence again then, because I think in the moment or the day after you meet someone, you still have that excitement and the freshness of the experience of meeting them. But maybe three months later, that has receded a little bit and now you're like: ‘Well, why would they want to hear from me? They didn't even respond to that first follow-up I sent.’ And then the confidence depletes a little bit. So how do you think about confidence and where does it fit into this whole follow-up process?
Julie Brown
So again, I'm going to go back to what I said earlier that, if I email somebody and they don't email me back, I don't think that they didn't like me or they didn't want to connect with me. I think they probably had something going on.
The average worker gets 135 emails a day. It's really easy for your email to have gotten lost. Or maybe they flagged it for follow-up and their life blew up, which happens all of the time. And so I reach back out, not with any feeling of like, ‘Oh, they didn't want to connect with me, or is there something wrong with me?’ My confidence doesn't take a hit at all.
I reach back out and say, “Hey, we met at that event a couple months ago. I sent an email, but gosh, did you know an average person gets 135 emails a day? Would be really easy for you to not see it.”
And then also, because my book has a swear in it, my email gets caught in spam a lot, so I'll even make a joke about it. I'm like: “Sometimes my email gets straight to spam because of my trucker mouth.” And so I just make it as happy as I am as a person. I make it sound like me. You might meet some people who, I don't know why, but they wouldn't reach back out to you. And this is the thing about networking—you just go meet more people.
ilise benun
That's right. My dad always said that about making money. “Oh, the prices went up? Just go make more money.”
Julie Brown
Go make more money, yeah.
ilise benun
I learned that. That was a good thing. That was an important lesson. “Oh, you lost your client? All right, go get more clients.”
Julie Brown
Go get another client.
ilise benun
Which leads us to your marketing. So let's wrap up a little bit with the kind of broader plan that you have for your marketing. In addition to networking, what else do you do?
Julie Brown
So networking is a big part of my marketing plan or my business development plan. Most of my work does come in from referrals, or somebody saw me speak and then they're in the audience and their company hires me.
I'm trying to make sure I don't make this sound like this is cumbersome because I love my marketing efforts and I have a lot of fun with them. But I do a lot, as far as my marketing goes.
So every week, I have a newsletter; it comes out every Wednesday. And that newsletter is super fun, and it's just about something that's happening in my life right now and how it relates to relationship building or connection or confidence or networking or whatnot. So for example, my newsletter last week was about how my husband and I bought a record player, like a record player.
And we've been having all this fun going to record stores and buying records. And the thing about listening to music on a record player is you're in for the long haul. There's no, “Alexa, next” on a record. So you pick an artist and you listen to their entire portfolio, which is something we don't do really anymore.
And I equated it to relationships. There are A sides and there are B sides, and your relationships will go through these things where it's really easy and you can just follow along. But then there's some times where you're like: “Oh, wow, this song sucks.” You get into a little bit of a funk.
And so it's weird. I always feel like I can make everything into a networking story. So the newsletter—and I love writing them, and they always have wonderful graphics; I have a wonderful marketing manager and graphic designer. My podcast comes out every Wednesday. But then I also create on LinkedIn a lot of posts, which are snippets of my speeches. So I'll take an hour speech and cut it into 30- to 45-second little pieces. Or I do my own real videos that I love, networking tips, and those come out twice a week. And they're all branded with my colors. And I do swear in them because that is my brand.
ilise benun
Kind of your brand.
Julie Brown
And people absolutely love them. And it is a tremendous amount of work. I don't want your listeners to think that it's not a tremendous amount of work. It is. But for me, just having that constant brand ... like if somebody says: “Do you know Julie Brown? Or you should hire Julie Brown ...” when they see my brand, they're like: “Okay, that's what I'm getting,” because everything is consistent.
And I'm in a position where I only want to work with the people who want my energy and the way I deliver information. So when somebody comes to my brand, they're either going to be like, “Absolutely not. We cannot hire somebody who swears on stage.” Or they're going to be like, “Yes! This is exactly what we need.”
ilise benun
And you do some prospecting as well, right?
Julie Brown
I do. I get hired by a lot of corporations that have internal employee resource groups. So specifically, I get hired by a lot of companies to speak to their women's employee resource groups and/or their young professionals. And so when I noticed that this was happening, that I was like, call after call after call were these internal employee resource groups, I was like, “Okay, well, I need to make a business development plan to go after employee resource groups across the country.”
And so there's a tremendous amount of research that goes into that. So you have to think about: Okay, what are the biggest companies? What are their ERGs? Who runs their ERGs? How would I reach out? Do I have any connections that can make a strategic introduction for me?
And so I've been doing this, and the results have been really wonderful, because I was always waiting for the work to come to me, which was great, and it does do that.
But now I'm going out and prospecting. And it's even so much more fun for me because when I'm in a meeting, they're like: “Oh my God, I'm so glad you called. We totally need this.” And so getting out of my own way, thinking: Oh, if they want me, they'll come to me versus I have something that people need and I'm going to go out there and tell them they need it, and they tell me, “yes, we need it.”
ilise benun
That's awesome. All right, well, I think you've shared so much of really valuable, down-to-earth information, which is what people need.
I always like to give a baby step at the end. So picking anything we've talked about, what baby step would you suggest a listener can take to move more in the direction of, let's talk about networking, specifically?
Julie Brown
So one thing we didn't talk about is a really, really strategic way or quick way to grow your network, is to ask the people you already know to make a strategic introduction for you. And there's this thing in social network theory called ‘triadic closure,’ which, basically, is, if you are introduced to somebody you don't know by a mutual connection, by a mutual friend, the rate at which your relationship grows is faster because you share a mutual friend.
And so think about, maybe there's three people in your network right now that you could say to them, “Hey, I'm actually trying to strategically grow my network. Who in your network would be a good connection for me, but I would also be a good connection for them? Would you mind making that introduction for me?” That's the easiest way to start ...
ilise benun
Love that.
Julie Brown
... growing your network.
ilise benun
Beautiful. All right. Well, Julie Brown, tell the people where they can find you online, because I'm sure you're not the only Julie Brown out there.
Julie Brown
No, it's a pretty popular name. So if you want my website, my website is juliebrownbd, so B as in boy, D as in dog, but for me, it stands for business development. So juliebrownbd.com. I am juliebrownbd on LinkedIn, so if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, I would love that.
And please, when you reach out and connect, just let me know where you found me, so then I can make that triadic closure between the three of us that you found me here. And I'm on Instagram at juliebrown_bd (juliebrown underscore bd).
ilise benun
Beautiful. All right, Julie, thank you so much, and I'm sure we'll talk again soon.
Julie Brown
Okay, great. Thanks for having me.
ilise benun
Do you see what I mean about her attitude? It could be contagious, if you let it be. And here's the baby step Julie suggests. Pick three people in your network who you can ask for a strategic introduction, who could be a good connection for you, because this is one of the easiest things to do—reach out to someone you already know and ask for a connection.
So if you want to build a thriving business on your own terms, the first step is to sign up for my Quick Tips at marketing-mentortips.com. Once you're on the site, you'll find lots more resources, including my Simplest Marketing Plan. So enjoy, and I'll see you next time.