Tam Pham argues that networking works best when you focus on giving value and making genuine friends, not extracting favors. He uses Adam Grant's framework of givers, takers, and matchers to show that givers achieve greater long-term success. Pham shares how volunteering at a conference and consistently helping others led to a community-manager role that opened new doors.
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The word networking has a really bad stigma of, like for example, when you hear the word networking, what do you guys think of? Just just shout it out. Boring. Boring. All right, that's good. Lame. Lame. Getting business cards. Getting business cards. Yes. You gotta be like all you know every after parties. Yeah yeah yeah after parties. All right. Yeah perfect right. So I always thought networking was like you had to you know shove business cards down people's faces. And you had to, I don't know, like play golf with, you know, like some entrepreneurial dudes just for them to like you, right? And that's what I thought networking was. But really, networking is just making friends. Because if you think about it, you want to make— you want your business connections to be people who love you, support you, and appreciate you. And when you go into this mindset of like, oh, here's my business card, here's your business card, and become very transactional, Negotiate. You start to realize, like, wow, I don't actually want these people in my network if they're just going to use me whenever they need, like, a developer or they need, you know, help in whatever area. If they're just using you. So I had to switch that mindset from networking to just making friends. So when you think about making friends, everyone here has made friends, right? Some of us aren't as— some of us don't have the skill of making friends as well as others. But we all have made friends before, and that's something we can always improve on. And so when you come into a conference or come into an event with the mindset of just making friends, everything becomes so much easier because you're not pressured to like scout out, like, oh, here, like make a list of like, oh, here's the speakers I want to meet, here's like all the people I want to like hunt down, you know, like stalking the guest list to see like who you want to meet. Like, that's like, that's one way of doing it, but that's just very transactional. It's very like, okay, I'm gonna get these people so I can use them for whatever case I want. And so switching this mindset. And also I read this book by Adam Grant that I really resonated with. It's called Give and Take. And the framework is that there's 3 types of people in business. There's givers, there's takers, and there's matchers. And ironically— Is that the same author from Originals? Yes, yes, that's a great book as well. So he wrote Adam Grant wrote Originals and Give and Take. He's a Warren professor for business at School of Business, and basically the book just sums up in a nutshell that ironically givers are the one who who are the more successful ones when they give give give instead of the people who take and people who match, which is kind of transactional. You help me, I help you, and that's kind of fascinating. And that's just being a giver is not just Relevant in business, but in politics, in entertainment, in whatever industry you go into. And so I was like, wow, now we're switching this mindset from a self-interest model, which is, what can you do for me? What can you do for me? What can you do for me? To now, what can I help you with? How can I make you— how can I make you say thank you to me? How can I, like, help you make your day or make your business stronger or better? And after that, like, so many opportunities just come to you. Because the more you give, give, give, the more you actually receive. And that sounds like— that doesn't sound conventional, but that's actually the way it is because of psychology. There's this law called the Law of Reciprocity where it says when you give to somebody, they have a psychological urge to give back to you. And so whether you use that for manipulation purposes or just genuine warmth and kindness, then that's up to you. I don't want to talk about the ethics of it. But it's a true thing because some people do manipulate. Like, they give out favors expecting like, okay, this guy— I helped, you know, Joey hire this guy. In like one week, I'm gonna ask him if he can introduce me to his investor. They're very transactional. They're called matchers, right? Like The Godfather. What's that? Like The Godfather, like in the movie, like he provides favors, she asks for favors after. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, right? And I mean, that could work, but in the long term, that's not like— when you build relationships, that's not how you want to go about it. No. And so switching this mindset from a self-interest model to a giving model is how you build these long-lasting relationships. And so as I was going through my career and my journey, I decided to give, give, give to as many people as I can. For example, like for the Lean Startup conference that people are at today, I volunteered at their conference like 3 years ago, and I stayed in touch with the organizers. I had a great time with the staff, and I just kept giving and giving, like giving an article or sharing like a comment about their newest work anniversary or whatever it is. And you're always like on top of their mind and also just being a kind person. And so when it came around the next conference, they reached out to me and said, hey, we have a position opening for this community manager position in marketing. Do you want it? Here's the pay and here's the details. I was like, dude, fuck yeah! So I took it and that led to, you know, other opportunities. And like, for example, you wouldn't even believe, like, we all, after the conference, we all had dinner at Eric Biesse's house and we were just chilling with all the other speakers and team. Hey, what's going on? You're dressed for success today. Yeah. So, so that's kind of the framework of just giving, giving, giving. And we can go deeper into how to network with investors, how to network with mentors, but I'm just gonna like take a seat and then you guys can just ask me questions and we can go in whatever direction you guys want to pull me in. All right? All right.
