Yes, You Can Make New Friends While You’re Stuck at Home: How to Network in Your Pajamas.
You’re sitting in your living room at your computer at yet another Zoom meeting that could have been an email. You’re wondering if you can turn off your camera and check those tweets on your iPhone without anyone on your team noticing. You remember that you should have turned it off 30 minutes ago when your spouse started arguing with your father-in-law in the kitchen about whether his seniors’ water aerobics class counted as an essential activity, while your ninth grade daughter was dozing off at her laptop during her French class.
But most importantly, you think to yourself, “Is this all there is? From Monday to Friday, I see the same people from work on the same screen for eight hours a day. On Saturday and Sunday, I spend those 48 hours with the people I live with. Then it starts all over again on Monday. But it’s not like I was going to a bunch of social events to network before the lockdown started. Those big crowds never worked for an introvert like me. Am I never going to meet another new human being again, unless I give birth to them?”
Yes, you will meet another new human being again. No, you do not have to attend a crowded networking event to build a new relationship. You can make new friends without leaving your home. You can find your people, connect with your people, and nurture your network from the comfort of your weighted blanket. This is How to Network in your Pajamas.
1. Find your people.
Your people. Not anyone else’s people. Yours. You are going to find people you connect with, based on your wants and needs.
Choose a platform. For simplicity, we will focus on LinkedIn, which describes itself as “the world's largest professional network on the internet.” Though occasional users treat the platform as a dating site, LinkedIn is a place where working professionals and entrepreneurs want to connect with other business people to strengthen their networks. You can also apply the following methods to other social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Do your research. Pick an industry or an interest or both. Then find people on LinkedIn who share your industry or interest. For example, I, Mahlena, enjoy television, both watching and writing television. Therefore, I will go to the LinkedIn homepage, I will type “television” in the search box, and before I press the Enter button, I click the “television in People” option. This will allow you to see the people in your extended network who have included the word “television” in their profiles. Next, click on a person who sparks your fancy and decide whether this is someone you would like to connect. DO NOT PRESS THE CONNECT BUTTON. First, you are going to make a list, in an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet, and write down their name. Then you are going to keep collecting names on this list. You will reach out to these people later.
An additional way to find people to connect with is through a content search on LinkedIn. Again, go to the LinkedIn homepage, type “television” in the search box (if you also like television), and press the Enter button. Then click on the “More” button, and click on “Content”. This will give you posts including the word “television”, written by LinkedIn users whom you may like to connect with. Read the posts you like, and, if you are called to do so, Like, Comment, and Share.
The final step in Find your people is to fill out your list. Write down 50 people you have discovered through your LinkedIn search, and find their email address, whether through the Contact Info button on their LinkedIn profile, on their website, or if it is listed on their other social media profiles.
2. Connect with your people.
From your list of 50 people, select the 10 whom you most want to talk with and whose email address you have. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ask for a brief coffee chat, coffee optional, video chat preferred. You are going to send 10 email messages (one email per person, not 10 messages to the same individual) to secure 1 brief meeting. It may not take your reaching out to 10 different people to schedule a meeting. It may take more or fewer. Focus on 10.
After you have this meeting, send a thank you note. Unless the other person has requested a link or an article or something specific from you, send the note the next day. Include a reference to the topics you discussed during your conversation, so that the other person knows you were actually listening to what they had to say.
Did I skip over the actual How to Conduct a Coffee Chat part, similar to how those Underpants Gnomes on South Park skipped over Phase 2 of how to go from Collect Underpants to Profit?
Yes, I did.
If you would like more information on How to Prepare for a Coffee Chat, How to Connect during a Coffee Chat, or Everything You Need to Know about Virtual Coffee Chats (thanks, SEO), then please leave a comment below. Or email me, Mahlena, at mahlenaspeaks@gmail.com.
3. Nurture your network.
Now that you’ve gotten the pesky cold calling out of the way, you are going to explore your existing network. Everyone has an existing network, even babies.
Why didn’t we start with people you know?
Because this article starts with the words, “Yes, You Can Make New Friends”. New friends. Not necessarily friends of your old friends.
Back to these old friends. Are you connected with all of these people on LinkedIn? Scroll through your contacts, identify the ones you want to keep, and connect with those friends and family members on LinkedIn. This action will strengthen your network, since the more 1st connections you have on LinkedIn, the more 2nd and 3rd connections you will have as well.
Once you have sent those connection requests, engage in conversation. Send a hello message. Show interest in their goals for the year. And, if you notice two of your colleagues who should know each other, but don’t, introduce them.
Let’s Recap.
Find your people. Connect with your people. Nurture your network.
Three actions that sound simple, but they take work.
If you are ready to do the work, let me know in the comments. Tell me how you are making new friends from the comfort of your own home, how you are networking in your pajamas, and how many food-based competition shows you have watched on Netflix this week.
And, if you want to go further into your networking process, specially curated for ambitious introverts, then email Mahlena at mahlenaspeaks@gmail.com to learn more about how to continue building a network that works for you.
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Who is Mahlena, and How can she Help Me?
Speaker, Writer, and 4-time Author Mahlena-Rae Johnson (that's me! 💁🏾♀️) teaches Ambitious Introverts like you How to Network in Your Pajamas.
What Qualifications does Mahlena have to help Me Network as an Introvert?
Besides her BA in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University, and her MBA in Marketing from the University of Southern California (Fight on. ✌️), Mahlena also earned a graduate certificate in Social Media from Seneca College. Additionally, Mahlena has been an introvert her entire life, and therefore she is an expert on the subject.
Does Mahlena actually know how to meet new people, in-person or online?
Mahlena has previously connected with thousands of people in dozens of countries and on 6 continents (I’m coming for you next, Antarctica. 🐧), including artists, counselors, educators, engineers, entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 executives, podcasters, politicians, programmers, venture capitalists, writers, and professionals in various other industries. She also prides herself on interacting with at least one new person each week, and coffee chatting online with at least one new person each month.
Cool, Mahlena has won friends and influenced people. What can she do for me?
Mahlena knows what you are going through. As an introvert with big dreams and a big aversion to rooms full of loud people, Mahlena understands the difficulties of wanting to connect with new friends while simultaneously wanting to hide under a blanket in bed. She can show you how to do both at the same time.
Mahlena is NOT here to kick you out of your comfort zone, throw you into the deep end of the pool, and hope the shock will teach you how to swim. Yes, some of her proven connection techniques, like cold emailing strangers, will be uncomfortable at first. Yes, she will help you build your tolerance for rejection; sometimes you have to kiss a lot frogs to find your networking prince.
But primarily, Mahlena will show you how to take these three steps:
- Meet new people.
- Make new friends.
- Build relationships that strengthen your network.
Questions? Email mahlenaspeaks@gmail.com