Karen Wickre - Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count

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Advance praise for Karen Wickre and

Taking the Work Out of Networking

Karen Wickre may be the best-connected Silicon Valley figure youve never heard of, widely regarded in tech as a champion networker. Now she reveals in highly readable, practical terms how anyone can create and sustain a network painlessly, and why it matters. This book can change your career, and your life.

Walt Mossberg, former columnist and conference producer for the Wall Street Journal , AllThingsDigital , and Recode

Karen Wickre has taken a lifetime of learning and put it into a practical, easy-to-use book that people of all stripes and backgrounds will find useful. (And by the way: its not only for introverts!)

Sree Sreenivasan, former Chief Digital Officer of New York City, Columbia University, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Listen to Karen Wickre. Taking the Work Out of Networking will make you a better questioner, observer, relationship-nurturer, and, yesnetworker for all the right reasons.

Blair Shane, Chief Marketing Officer, Sequoia Capital

If you believe relationships are the bedrock of both adventure and achievement, then you must read this book. Step by step, concept by concept, Karen shares her wisdom on how to build a community of relationships that help you change the world.

Keith Yamashita, founder and chairman, SYPartners

Networking is essential for business success, yet many still dread it. Prepare to change your mind. Karen Wickres inspired new book shows readers how to embrace their true selves while building an authentic, sustainable network.

Dorie Clark, adjunct professor at Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business and author, Stand Out Networking and Reinventing You

Most of us dread the awkward phone calls to strangers and the transactional nature of what we think of as networking. Karen Wickre recasts the notion completelyand extremely usefullyin terms of connections, friendships, and reciprocity. A very user-friendly tool for those of us introverts masquerading as extroverts.

Amanda Bennett, journalist and author

For introverts who panic at the idea of networking, Wickres book is a deep, calming breath. You can do it.

Sophia Dembling, author of The Introverts Way and Introverts in Love

People will always be moving and changing jobs, but the value of human connection doesnt change. Karen Wickre shows how loose-touch interactions can make your life better. If youre an introvert, you will find help making connections in ways that dont feel forced or artificial. If you know an introvert, this book makes a good gift.

Matt Cutts, former Googler

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Copyright 2018 by Karen Wickre

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Touchstone hardcover edition November 2018

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Interior design by Kyle Kabel

Jacket design by Pete Garceau

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-9927-1

ISBN 978-1-5011-9929-5 (ebook)

For Tom, who taught me about fearlessness, and for all of you who are my tribe. You keep me going.

Collecting the dots. Then connecting them. And then sharing the connections with those around you. This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting, sharing.

Amanda Palmer

Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting.

Ivan Misner

N etworking is one of those things most of us think of as a chorean unloved task to undertake when we need something: a new job, better career guidance, more education, or other useful information. As I was developing the idea of this book, virtually every person I mentioned it to said the same thing: I hate networking. Anything to help me avoid it, or survive it, would be great. When I asked friends on Twitter and Facebook what specifically they hate about having to network, the replies flew in:

Everyones trying to be something theyre not.

The goal-driven artificiality of it. Conversations had for the sake of achieving a goal, rather than for creating connection, feel fake.

I hate having to have surface-level conversations with people who I will probably forget for the sole mutual purpose of trying to take advantage of the relationship for personal benefit.

As a lifelong introvert, the idea of forcing an introduction, talking too much about myself, or even asking for a business card has always been anathema. I get anxious if my calendar gets crowded with meetings, calls, and other obligations requiring me to talk too much or be in a crowd.

And yet, despite my own need for self-protection and solitude, Ive ended up at age sixty-seven with a few thousand contacts across the world. I would never work a room, but Im not afraid to initiate a conversation with virtually anyone. Over my long and varied career, my network of contacts has come to enrich my life every day. Friends and acquaintances (and the people they know, and so on) regularly come to me for ideas, support, connection, and introductions. And I do the same.

Wherever you fall on the introvert > extrovert spectrum, the need to network in order to develop new connections has never mattered more. A few proof points:

We change jobs a lot. Younger baby boomers hold nearly a dozen different jobs during their working years, and millennials are projected to hold even more (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Job hopping starts young. New college grads today work at twice as many companies in their first five post-grad years than in earlier eras (LinkedIn).

We move a lot. People in the United States move more than eleven times in their lives (FiveThirtyEight.com).

More of us work for ourselves. There are nearly 41 million self-employed Americans aged twenty-one and up, and the trend is growing (MBO Partners, Nation1099.com).

For all of these reasonsjob changes, freelance work, geographical movesits become incumbent on most all of us to make networking a regular practice. And as we move through our professional lives, were going to continue to need an ever-changing, ever-growing variety of people to call on. A contemporary definition of networking is to make an effort to meet and talk to a lot of people, especially in order to get information that can help you. That doesnt sound too bad, right?