From Contacts to Connections

If you knew finding female mentors could increase your sales and profits by more than 30% compared to choosing a male mentor, wouldn’t this be your first order of business as a startup maven? (A study of 900 Ugandan entrepreneurs showed just that.) 80% of women entrepreneurs report tapping into their network at least once a week! 

So, let’s get started building (or expanding) your mentor network. Last week, you identified skills gaps – critical areas where you will need some help building and growing your business. Now it’s time to start filling in some of those gaps. Turn it into a robust and dynamic networking matrix that will ultimately deliver your first-generation Kitchen Cabinet - the group of advisors and colleagues who will exchange invaluable advice and guidance for wine when you most need them.

Start with who you know. The good news, you’re not starting from scratch. You already have a network and it’s time to leverage it to see where you can make connections between your skills gaps and your existing relationships. Consider your personal contacts first: family, friends, colleagues you know well. For us, we were incredibly lucky to have some really smart people in our inner circle. We started with other entrepreneurs and even other professional services frenemies growing at a fast enough clip to be intimidating. A few of our outreaches were absolute trainwrecks, uncomfortable silences and a lot of watch checking.  But just as many were mind-blowing, with our contacts immediately searching their mental rolodex for people who could help us or sharing intimate details of a business failure we could learn from. Keep in mind that you are not only looking for the CEO of the next unicorn startup. A lot of times a neighbor, a brother, a friend of a friend you’ve had for 30+ years, or even the old college roommate who’s couch you’ve been known to crash on after a rough night will make a great cabinet member. The most important qualification and common denominator for everyone on your team is the forthrightness to tell it like it is, even if it might bruise your ego.

Look to LinkedIn. LinkedIn can be a treasure trove to start filling in more skills gaps. So, it’s surprising that women are 26% less likely than men to ask for a referral on the platform. We bucked this trend (hard) and reached out to first and second connections that were relevant and might listen to our story. We also made sure they were engaged with the real world - consistently posting smart ideas, events or perspectives, (i.e., not cat pictures). We added people we met at networking events who seemed bright, open to connect and at least entertaining enough to share a glass of wine. Finally, and sparingly, we included friends of friends who are so on point we just knew we had to find a way to meet them (more on this later).

Make connections and strike some balance. Connect each person on your list with a skills gap or specialty area on your matrix. You’ll start to see the beginnings of a solid sounding board emerge. Ideally, you want to balance tenured vets – those who understand scaling nuances that you don’t yet – with newbies who have some cool expertise and probably want to broaden their network as much as you do. A word of warning: don’t go too heavy on a specific industry or a company. We started that way, and the echo chamber became pretty deafening.

Consider the first draft and activate your Plan B. Don’t panic if the first draft of your Kitchen Cabinet doesn’t look much like the elite crew you envision having around you on your way to fame and fortune. Building a personal roster of A-listers took us almost 3 years, and if you are a career newbie or have been in a long-term monogamous relationship with your employer, your matrix is naturally going to be more limited to start. That’s okay. You can keep layering on. Activating the friends of friends strategy is a great way to do so: beg, borrow and steal intros to the besties of your besties. Just remember to prioritize well and keep a few favors in reserve. (More on this next week).

Do a little selective networking with the goal of connecting.  If you find yourself looking at more gaping holes than connections, you may have no choice but to start hitting the networking event circuit. We found general “Women in Business” empowerment events a time suck with little to show for it. But targeted industry events and small hosted gatherings in larger cities could be chock full of hidden gem contacts.

Consider narrowing attendance to those events tailored to women scaling businesses. Even better, target those focused on some type of affinity group you are part of – industry, cultural, community, etc., where people might be friendlier and have more of an appetite for longer conversations and, possibly, granting favors. If you can, get an attendance list first so you are ready to move in when a potential connection sidles up to the bar at the same time as you. Be authentic, try to find common ground to share a feel-good moment or a wicked laugh. Your goal is to find a reason to have a second conversation. Worry about the third conversation and a possible ask later.

What’s Next?

There is no time like the present to figure out if your new networking matrix is up to its intended task. Next week, we’ll look at how to start slow and small, how to make very narrowly defined asks of your inaugural cabinet members, and what to do based on how they respond—whether that’s with help, or radio silence.