Having a strong professional network is important for every professional, and especially important for women. Because of unconscious bias in the workplace, women often have to work longer or harder than their male peers to get the same level of recognition. Since women still carry more of the burden of household management than men, including childcare, there is precious little time leftover for networking or career-related events that happen after hours. Yet women really benefit from sharing ideas and experiences with professionals inside and outside of their office walls.
There are plenty of tips and articles on where to find people, how and when to connect to them and even what you need to say to attract and maintain your network. With limited time to spend networking, we encourage women to really be intentional about who is in their professional network. When you only have a few hours a month to spend with your network, quality over quantity is the name of the game. Here are three good places to look.
- Industry groups – find out who the leaders in your industry are and add them to your network. If they are local, ask for a meeting to discuss a certain topic or current event. If they are out of town, connect on LinkedIn, invite them to be on a webcast/contribute to a blog, or set up a phone call. Examples of industry: healthcare, manufacturing, interior design, restaurant management.
- Peer groups – identify a few people you admire who share your role, but are in a different industry. Sharing experiences and approaches across industries sparks innovation. It can also save time when you can reuse someone else’s approach to a marketing campaign or business practice in your own industry. Examples of peer groups: finance executives, B2B marketing, customer service management, advertising executives.
- Adjacent groups – similar to industry groups, adjacent groups are industry groups that are closely aligned with your own. Connecting with leaders in adjacent groups can help identify trends that may affect your own industry. Examples of adjacent group: civic group and nonprofit charity, private and commercial real estate, private and public education, banking and finance, software development and product manufacturing.
We’ll be talking about how to build meaningful relationships for effective networking within these groups during our networking breakout session at the upcoming Momentum conference. Check back for more blog posts on this topic in the spring.
