Two people share how to build a professional network from nothing. Host focused meetups for niche groups like marketing directors. Message creators you admire on LinkedIn or email, and keep showing up to in-person events. Gary Vaynerchuk says it's not about social media anymore, just providing value.
And so I do think that, let's say you don't have a network right now. I remember when I was 26 years old, I found a group of directors of marketing because that was kind of the niche I was in at the time. And I invited them over to my place and we just had meetups where we talk about our marketing challenges and things like that. So as long as you're the curator, you can serve and you're saying, hey, I'm going to get a good group of people together. We're going to have a great discussion. Here's what we're going to talk about. And maybe even sometimes if you have some money, You can invite them to like a dinner, for example, or it can be at a happy hour, or maybe you can have someone else sponsor it. Those are all ways to get the right people in the room. And as you do that more and more, people are going to see you as a connector. And that's a way for you to start from scratch without having to quote unquote know anybody.
Yeah. And the main way I actually build my network is in-person events. So just meeting people, talking to them. I'm not talking about just ones I'm speaking at, just any in-person event. And the next one, and this is the bigger way, And you don't have to have a personal brand or be well known for this, is I just hit up people that I like and reading their content. Like I was reading a piece of content from Search Engine Land by this guy named Adam Ganoose. I'm probably mispronouncing his last name. Sorry, Adam. I did message him. He may not see it depending on if he logs onto the platform that I messaged him, because you can do LinkedIn, you can do email, you can pick whatever. platform, LinkedIn, I mean Instagram and direct message. And that's worked out really well. And I just read a lot of content. Eric reads a lot of content. I know a lot of you guys consume a lot of information as well. So it's, I think it's really a good idea to just message people. That's how Eric and I got to know each other back in the day. And I, people message me all the time and I message a lot of random people who have no clue who I am and it works out and I've built And I've built many long-lasting friendships from this method.
Honestly, you might think it's too late to create content today, but it's not because we talk about, like Gary Vee likes to talk about, it's no longer social media.
