Effective Networking in 10 Simple Steps
"How do you know everyone, Sam?" In a world built on fear, be fearless. And not an a$$h0le.
I don’t mean be boring. For the love of god, if another Young Desperate tries to hand me a resume at a bar meetup.
1. 80% of the battle is showing up.
How does anyone meet anyone? Whether you’re new to any field (I’m specifically going to talk about planning) or you’re a seasoned professional, you won’t meet people to build your “network” if you’re not in the rooms. Part of the problem is access and availability. How should you know what room to be in if you’ve never been in one? How can you find out about happy hours, lectures, events, conferences, meetups, and activities if you’re very new to the field? Practically a few starter tasks:
Find your local chapter of a professional organization. If you’re younger, find the “Young Professionals of xxxxx”. But there are a ton of organizations in every city or region that help to organize our profession: the American Planning Association has a local and national chapter in most places in the US, the Institute of Transportation Engineers unironically loves when planners join, and the Women’s Transportation Seminar is a good place to start. Membership can be nominal and each organization likely also hosts free events sporadically.
Separately, so it doesn’t get lost: there are local groups that also have lots of great influence and organizing power. These groups may be hyperlocal down to the block level, but they might also be more niche depending on your particular interest, and they may be political. You may be able to do meaningful work right away that helps you develop a reputation. Often, you can find out about these groups from the larger umbrella ones mentioned above.
Individual outreach might be a good path. It’s OK to cold email someone whose career path interests you, who works at a place that might be hiring, or someone who you’ve seen talk and you’d like to follow up with. Warning: do not ask for anything right up front except perhaps to buy them a cup of coffee where’s most convenient for them. This person does not know you, and you shouldn’t develop a parasocial relationship with them. Most people will agree to a quick cuppa somewhere, and, honestly, it’s a red flag for someone to say no for any other reason than they might be busy. Their time is not intrinsically more valuable than yours, and it speaks directly to their character. I really do believe in karma in this instance.
Takeaway: Be confident, be in the rooms, and be willing to sacrifice quiet time for this endeavor.
2. Be interesting and interested. (Thanks, Dave)
It’s really hard to know what it means to “be interesting,” and there’s no one way to do it. Here’s where lots of people—interesting and not—falter in their quest to connect with strangers: being yourself is enough, but there is a way to prepare for situations like this. If you’re involved in any hobby or have any interests whatsoever, you can learn how to present them in an engaging manner. Warning: do not be boring. Bragging is the fastest way to get anyone to stop listening to you. Unless someone asks you to elaborate specifically, keep descriptions of your accomplishments in gruesome detail for your grandma. But talk about how you got started, what practicing or honing looks like, and share some thoughts about it. This shapes you as a person because how you spend your time says how you value it QED.
Being interested is much more straightforward. Don’t talk over people (most times), don’t look to one-up them, don’t think about the next thing you’re going to say instead of listening. Do ask questions and expect an equally pompous answer: if you’re asking a question to set yourself up to talk more about you, that sucks. If you’re asking a question because you’re genuinely interested in the answer, that rules.
Takeaway: The key to being interesting and interested is how vulnerable you’re willing to be.
3. Follow up and be persistent, but not annoying.
Most neophyte networkers think that shaking hands with someone is the activity, and having the conversation is the relationship. But I beg you this: it’s not. Most people don’t follow up, send the text or email, connect on LinkedIn, or ask for a meeting or coffee. Then they wonder why their counterpart isn’t doing the same thing out of…pride? Fear? I promise you, if you’re not thinking of doing it, no one else is either. No one’s not thinking about you that much. That said, send the email and follow up a week later, once. If you hear back, great; if not, time to move on. That wasn’t meant to be. It does beg the question of why this person is sharing contact information if they don’t intend to be contacted.
Important: Just because someone hasn’t responded to you doesn’t mean they won’t. It just means they haven’t. If something is urgent, pick up the phone. Your preamble is less than urgent.
Takeaway: Send a follow-up and then follow up once. Don’t write your life story in an email, and don’t bury the lede. You want a meeting or call, and you’re free at these times, etc.
4. Give way, way more than you ask for.
This is true in marketing and in sales, and it’s true in relationships, especially in romantic ones, but also in professional ones. Assume that your give/take ratio is 60/40 and that your partner’s is also 60/40. I would modify this to 80/20 in a professional context if you want something: a job, a connection, a contract, someone’s actual billable time, etc. It’s one of the reasons I continue making exasperated content: my “give” is the ability to help a person publicly tell their story and philosophy to over 2000 people. It’s fun and non-threatening and takes about an hour of someone’s time, which is often available, especially if planned months in advance.
If you’re interested in making a new connection, ask what YOU can do for THEM, or even better, use the information you learned through your follow-ups and synthesize and ask to take the burden of through off your connection even more. “Hey, I saw you’re working on this project and met someone who’s doing similar work—can I connect you?” Something like that.
Takeaway: Don’t ask for people’s time or connections without offering something in return. Nuance: it’s not quid pro quo since there’s always asymmetry in an ask, but remember when someone did something helpful for your unprompted or didn’t want anything in return? Be that other person.
5. Don’t gatekeep, but do protect your network.
Here’s a weird one: if a new someone asks you to introduce them to one of your established contacts, when, if ever, should you say no? The answer is almost sometimes, and it’s situational. Sending an email doesn’t cost anything (for now), but connecting a valued friend to someone you don’t know carries reputational and diminishing returns risk.
Reputational risk: if you’re not an excellent judge of character and don’t believe you can read people incorrectly, by all means connect the dumbest person you’ve ever met who asked for a favor to someone that you’d die (professionally) for. What does that say to your friend about your ability to make good decisions with limited information? Not a really hard one here, but be careful about the person who’s asking too much too quickly and isn’t interesting or interested. Spot the users and ditch the losers.
Diminishing returns: There’s only so much you can do to help someone who won’t also help themselves. There’s such a thing as too much inch-deep connectivity that can waste everyone’s time. Avoid this.
Pro tip: When you’re asking for a connection, don’t say: “Who else do you know?” apropos of some basic search. This isn’t always a bad question, and like every bit of advice you’ll ever get, it is situational, but coming forward without being prompted with a handful of people you think someone might know and you’d like to speak to is better than the alternative. There are instances where the conversation is very specific—or very new—and there might be a reasonable time to ask an open-ended question, but I’d much rather tease out some homework for myself rather than burden my connection.
Takeaway: Don’t hide people you want for yourself, but be careful about connecting people you don’t know to people you do. Use good judgment and err on the side of the person you do know.
6. Also, protect your peace. Don’t overdo it.
Once you get somewhat good at this, it’s tempting to broaden your horizons and find rooms to be in all the time. It’s exhilarating to be sought after and to seek out the next person that can become your friend/partner/colleague/wife??1. You can practice small-to-medium talk by simply doing it a lot. Eventually, you’ll walk into rooms where you know more people than you don’t, that’s comfortable, and now you’re not learning anything. And you’re exhausted. And you’ve got too many meetings that only happen once or not at all.
Avoid: Being a serial coffee hopper. It’s too exhausting and expensive if it’s on your own dime. You’re not learning or helping, and you’re known for it. The industry is small.
Takeaway: It’s okay to say no and rot on your couch instead of pushing to your fifth networking event this week.
7. Don’t always seek out mid- or senior-level folks. There’s lots to be learned from your younger peers. (Thanks, Renee)
I love this advice that was given to me by my friend and fellow exasperated human, Renee Autumn Ray2. It’s tempting to seek out folks a career level higher than you for advice and mentorship, but remember, unless you’re literally a baby, you have advice to offer others, too. Seek out folks who look or are younger than you—they definitely understand social media better than you do and have their own lived experience to share that’s different from yours. You might learn a new trend or how young people are consuming information, which can make you better at your job and a smarter thinker because you can communicate better. And so on. Don’t be arrogant and assume that your experience necessarily means expertise.
Wow, Big Brain Alert: Except in one’s own literal lived experience, I’ve found that how long someone’s been practicing often has very little correlation with how good they are at their job. There are definitely benefits to experience, like knowing how to work and being able to heuristic some scenarios to save time and energy (and money), but be wary of the person you meet, younger or older who starts any sentence with, “As a xxxxxxx, ….” or “In my experience as a xxxxxxx, …” or “I went to the University of xxxxxxx, so ….” Reject credentialism and reject experience as proxy for good ideas ipso facto.
Takeaway: Don’t be an elitist or an ageist in either direction. Everyone who’s interesting and interested deserves your attention.
8. I’m split on whether carrying a business card is worth it in 2026.
This was surprisingly the most controversial tip on this list when I socialized the list during drafting. I’ll keep it simple and do a quick pro/con here.
I’m split on this. I use stickers with a QR code of my face, so.
Takeaway: Do you, and it can’t hurt to have some, especially if someone else is paying for it.
9. It’s okay to talk about things other than work; people are interested in getting to know you as a whole person.
If you’re at an industry event, it’s probably fine that you’re talking about topics related to your industry. Try to avoid being overly contentious with people you don’t know (unless you have a reputation for it, like me, and even still, I’m relatively careful about directly offending someone when I first meet them unless they work in “AI” on purpose). And if you’re seeing someone for the second time or more, try to remember a little detail about them or the conversation you talked about last time. It doesn’t have to be about work or a project, but it does have to be fun. I like pop culture and media, I like Formula 1 racing, and I like traveling to new places to eat. Maybe those came up last time. Ask where they’ve been recently or where they’d dream of going and why. Ask about their family if that was a topic that came up. Share a French fry. My god, it’s not that serious.
Takeaway: Ketchup doesn’t belong on French fries. But you belong in the room you’re in, remember that.
10: Remember: it’s not networking, it’s relationship-building. These people can be your friends, acquaintances, partners, or nothing at all.
Some of my best friends are people I’ve met at professional events. We work together and we hang out and do other stuff, too. But don’t force any of this. It’s okay to make professional acquaintances, too. People you can grab a beer with, or someone who makes you feel comfortable being in a new room, because you recognize them from last time. Go say hi and then don’t hang around like a weirdo. My philosophy is this: I want to work with people that I like who can hold their own on their own. I want to hang out with these people and absolutely foam or get excited about anything that’s in front of them.
Takeaway: Thanks for reading 2,500 words on how to be a human being in 2026.
DO NOT BE A CREEP. But if you hit it off with someone, why not?
Who I met doing some networking. The best.