MFM Mini - The 5 Part Process to Networking Effectively

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
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All right, let's talk about networking. That is one of the most annoying buzzwords in the business world. Nobody wants to be a networker, or nobody I know at least, nobody I like wants to be a networker, right? When we think of networker, I see schmoozing, suit wearing, kind of like fake complimenting, business card handing out, or loves to be at a conference, and just believes that the only way to send an email is to shoot it your way, right? So nobody wants to be a networker, but everybody wants a badass network. And you've probably heard the phrase, your network is your net worth. And it's not true, but there's some truth in it, like all cliches. And so, you know, I wanted to tell you about kind of the way I think about this stuff. And I used to have this thing, I wrote, I half wrote a book like 10 years ago, of all the things I had learned my first year doing a startup. And I never published it, maybe I should someday. These are, it's turning now into, I guess, podcasts like this, or my newsletter, go to shaanpuri.com. You should be subscribing. That's where I put out stories like this. But anyhow, the phrase I used was, I said, networking is like Noah's Ark, right? You know, the old fabled story of Noah's Ark.
So here's kind of how it's like Noah's Ark.
You have the flood. And I would say for most business, most startup businesses, just assume the flood is coming, right? For a startup, by default, you're gonna fail. You have to like do something to get out of failure into success. And so the flood is coming and your network is your best chance of surviving because within your network, you're gonna find knowledge, expertise, capital, strategy, different things that you're gonna need in order to survive.
Okay, number two, build it before you need it.
So you don't wanna try to build your network when you need a network, right? If you wanna fundraise, that's not the time to build your connections with investors. It's too late at that point.
And it's very transparent. Exactly what you're doing is very transactional. So you don't build a real network. You don't build real relationships. And so you wanna be placing deposits into those bank accounts for months or years before you ever are trying to make a withdrawal. And so that's why build it before you need it and you wanna build it with the intention of it being mutually beneficial, right? You wanna be depositing so that they have something in their account from you. You're giving before you're gonna end up asking for something.
Number three, keep it kosher. So in the story of Noah's Ark, God granted Noah and his followers the right to kill some of the animals and eat their meat, but it had to be done in a certain way. And it's the same principle with your network. You wanna use, but don't abuse your network. Everybody hates that guy who's just constantly asking and constantly using the network rather than it being a true friendship or sort of allyship where we'll help each other out and we'll know where the line is where you're asking for too much.
Okay, number four, you want two of everything. So what I do when I build a network, and this is, I've never heard anyone else talk about this, but it's made common sense to me, and I think you should do it too, is you wanna pair up every member in your network with another. So often, when you're networking, you're going to people that are, let's say, more successful, more knowledgeable, more connected than you. That's very frequently the case. And so that creates the potential for kind of a one-way dynamic, right? And you gotta think, why would this person on the other side, if I know why I would want to be connected with them, because they're smart, and they're experienced, and they have capital, and they have connections, why do they wanna connect with me? Well, first, have some confidence. They wanna connect with you, because you're an interesting person doing interesting things, that you're fun to be around, that you're kind, and you will help them without them even needing to ask. But the second thing is, when you're building a network, you don't want them all just to be connected to you. You want them to be connected to each other, right? So when I meet somebody, and I have two people in my network, I race to introduce those two dots to each other, right? I want them to connect with each other. And now I've added value to both of them just by connecting them with each other. So that's how you want two of everything, just like Noah had two of every animal on the ark. And by the way, I used to feel this weird sense of like, I don't know, jealousy, because I would introduce two people that were in my network, and all of a sudden they would become best friends, and they would do business together, and often they wouldn't even be including me in that stuff. And I used to think, oh man, maybe I should be trying to keep everybody to myself. But obviously that's a naive, short-sighted way of thinking about it. It's a natural human reaction, but it's not the right response. The right response is to say, hell yeah, I want all the people around me to be winning, and I have so much abundance in my life of success, of connections, of all this stuff.