This presentation was originally done for CTO School, a meetup for CTOs, VP Eng, or Tech Leads that are interested in improving their skills and learning from each other. It focuses on how to be helpful to others and bringing a targeted framework to your networking. Additional resources from this talk can be found at http://life-longlearner.com/CTOSchool

1. Networking: An Intentional
Approach
By @Scottbrit

2. Focus of This Talk
• How to be Helpful to Others
• Developing and Starting A Networking Plan
• Maintaining Your Network

3. Networking is not just about making
acquaintances

4. Great networkers make acquaintances and turn
the right ones into trusted professional contacts
and friends

5. Why We Network
• Nothing helps us reach and achieve our goals
more than people
– Our goals are going to change, but the fact that
we need help achieving them does not. This is
why having a great network scales over the
lifecycle of our careers and is a worthy investment
of our time.

6. How to Approach Networking
• Provide value to others without expecting
anything in return
• Lead new interactions with value
If done right, the investment you make in others’ success will return
itself ten-fold

7. Ways To Provide Value

8. Relevant Introductions
• Do – Ask someone if they’d like to be
introduced to someone before making an
introduction
• Don’t – Just intro someone without asking
first. You could be putting a burden on
someone

9. Feedback
• Providing thoughtful, descriptive feedback on
something is greatly appreciated by mature
people
– Blog post
– Product
– Presentation
– Bug reporting

10. Feedback Done Well

12. Relevant Content and News
• Would someone receive value from knowing
about this? Share the wealth
– News on competitors
– A valuable article that aligns with their interests
– An event they might want to attend

13. Tools To Isolate This Content
• Google Alerts
• Tweet Alarm
• Relevant Email Lists
• Quora
• SalesLoft Job Change Alerts

15. Identify and Address Direct Needs
• Intentionally seek out opportunities to help or
address a need.

16. Are They Hiring?
SinglePlatform is ; )

17. Isolate Opportunities With Tweetdeck

18. Read Their Blog
Source: http://alexstechthoughts.com/post/22119140993/getting-involved

19. Don’t Always Limit Help To Work
We all have lives outside of work where we
enjoy improvement as well

20. How Most People Think About
Networking
“Many of us don’t think much about whom we
invite into our lives or how we manage those
relationships. Instead we treat the connections
we form with others as something that happens
naturally as a matter of circumstance or
convenience.”

21. A Targeted, Intentional Approach
• Identify 10-20 people who you think have the
ability to propel you to achieve your goals
• Add value to these people’s lives on a consistent
basis
– Over time the goal is to go from acquaintance ->
trusted business contact -> friend
• Much more time efficient than the “I hope I meet
someone cool at this event” approach

22. This Framework Inspires:
• Purpose to my networking
• Direction which compels action
• Efficiency
• Accountability
– We manage what we measure
• Consistency
– Anything left to itself is bound to decay

23. Diligently Track Interactions
• The biggest networking fail is lack of
consistency throughout the relationship
building life-cyle
– This is why acquaintances never become trusted
professional contacts or friends
• Realistic Goal: Provide value to your targets
every 3-4 weeks.
– Make sure it requires little to no effort on their
part. LEAD WITH THE VALUE

24. Contactually: A Great Tool For
Managing Consistency
Source: http://www.contactually.com/

25. Action Plan
• Define your goals for the next year
• Think of 10-20 people who can help you
achieve them
– Aim to start engaging 2 new people every month
from your target list
• Write out ways you can interact with them
• Log the interactions on a spreadsheet
– Aim for consistent content grounded in adding
value every 3-4 weeks (if not more)

26. Resources
• Posts on networking:
– http://life-longlearner.com/cto-school
– Link to my intentional networking spreadsheet is
here as well
• A great book: Never Eat Alone

27. Don’t Be A Stranger!
• Scott@life-longlearner.com
• @Scottbrit