Julie Ann Kenner

Networking Is About People, Not Contacts

If you ask me what has had the greatest impact on my career, my answer won't be a sales strategy, a degree, or a perfectly mapped-out career plan.

It will be people.

I am what I jokingly call a network-aholic. I genuinely love walking into a room, meeting someone new, learning what they do, hearing their story, and discovering where our worlds might intersect.

But networking hasn't always been about what a relationship could do for my career.

In fact, I believe that's where we often get networking wrong.

Networking Isn't Collecting Contacts

Somewhere along the way, networking became associated with business cards, LinkedIn connection counts, elevator pitches, and walking into a room trying to meet as many people as possible.

That's not how I see it.

Networking is simply relationship building with intention.

• It's sitting next to someone you don't know.
• It's remembering the conversation you had three months ago and asking how something turned out.
• It's making an introduction between two people, even when there is absolutely nothing in it for you.
• It's celebrating someone's promotion.
• It's sending the follow-up message.
• It's showing up again.
• And again.

Over time, those seemingly small interactions create something incredibly valuable: trust.

And trust cannot be collected in a stack of business cards.

Build Your Network Before You Need It

One of the biggest lessons I've learned throughout my career is this:

The worst time to start building a network is when you desperately need one.

Relationships shouldn't begin with an ask.

Build them when you don't need the job. Build them when you aren't trying to close the deal. Build them before you need the introduction.

Some of the greatest opportunities I've received have come through relationships that were built months—or even years—before there was ever a reason for either of us to need something from the other.

At the time, we were simply two people who met in a room.

That's the beautiful unpredictability of networking.

You rarely know which conversation will matter later.

Walk Into the Room Anyway

I especially want women early in their careers to understand this:

You do not have to feel like you belong in the room before you walk into it.

Go anyway.

• Go to the breakfast where you don't know anyone.
• Attend the luncheon and resist the temptation to sit beside the one person you already know.
• Walk into the happy hour alone.
• Introduce yourself to the executive whose title intimidates you.
• Ask the question.
• And please—say your name.

You don't need to be the loudest person in the room. You don't need the biggest title. You don't need twenty years of experience.

You simply need the courage to say:

"Hi, I'm Julie."

I've walked into plenty of rooms where I didn't know exactly what would come from being there.

• Sometimes nothing did.
• Sometimes I made a friend.
• Sometimes I met a future client.
• Sometimes I met someone who later introduced me to someone else.
• And sometimes a single conversation opened a door I couldn't have known existed when I walked through the first one.

That's why I keep showing up.

Don't Just Build a Network. Be Part of Someone Else's.

There's another side of networking that I think matters just as much.

Use your network for other people.

• If two people should know each other, introduce them.
• If someone is looking for an opportunity and you know someone who might be able to help, connect them.
• If another woman is doing something incredible, say her name in rooms she isn't in.

There is enough room for more than one person to succeed.

Some of the relationships I value most professionally have grown because one of us helped the other without keeping score.

That's the kind of network I want.

Not a database of people I can call when I need something.

A community of people who genuinely want to see one another win.

Technology Should Help Us Connect, Not Replace Connection

Ironically, we live in perhaps the most connected professional world in history.

We have LinkedIn, email, texting, professional associations, chambers, conferences, networking groups, industry events, and social media.

And yet keeping up with all of it can become overwhelming.

I experienced that firsthand.

As someone involved with multiple professional organizations, I found myself bouncing between association websites, emails, social media posts, and calendars just trying to answer one simple question:

Where am I supposed to be?

I kept thinking there had to be an easier way.

There wasn't.

So I built one.

That frustration ultimately became Mosaic Association Events, a platform designed to bring professional organizations, events, continuing education, and relationship tracking together in one place.

But the technology itself was never the heart of the idea.

People were.

Because a platform can tell you where the event is. It can help you remember who you met. It can organize your calendar.

But it cannot walk across the room and introduce itself.

You still have to do that part.

And I hope we never automate that away.

Your Network Is Bigger Than Your Career

Networking has certainly helped me grow professionally, but its impact on my life has gone far beyond business.

• Some professional contacts have become close friends.
• Some clients have become mentors.
• Some introductions have become opportunities.
• Some conversations have encouraged me during seasons when I needed it more than the other person probably ever knew.

That's why I don't measure the strength of my network by how many LinkedIn connections I have.

I measure it by the relationships behind those names.

• Who would answer my call?
• Whose call would I answer?
• Who can I help?
• Who can I introduce?
• Who am I genuinely excited to see when I walk into the next room?

Those questions tell me much more about the strength of my network than a follower count ever could.

So, Walk Into the Room

If you're waiting until you're more experienced, more successful, more confident, more established, or more something before you start networking, stop waiting.

Walk into the room.

• Say hello.
• Ask someone what they do—and actually listen to the answer.
• Follow up.
• Show up again.
• Be generous with your introductions.
• Celebrate other people's wins.
• Build relationships when you don't need anything.
• And when you've earned your place at a table, look around and see who else you can invite to sit beside you.

You may not know what that first conversation will become.

That's the point.

Because one of the most powerful things I've learned throughout my career is that opportunities don't always arrive looking like opportunities.

• Sometimes they look like a breakfast you almost skipped.
• A seat beside someone you don't know.
• A LinkedIn message you almost didn't send.
• Or two simple words:

"Hi, I'm..."

Say them.

You never know what comes next.