The Art of Soulful Networking Introverted Entrepreneurs' Path to Impactful Relationships

Hello, my name is Kavita Melwani and I'm a Master Certified Success and Business Coach with two decades of experience as an entrepreneur and almost a decade as a coach. I want to personally welcome you to the Soulful Entrepreneurs Club podcast, where my vision is to empower as many spiritually led businesses to run purposeful and profitable businesses aligned with their true selves. I want you to confidently and opulently shine your light without the overwhelm, the stress or the burnout. Together, we will explore challenges that soulful entrepreneurs face and real, implementable solutions so you can step into your unique purpose and shine. Solutions so you can step into your unique purpose and shine. It is possible to bridge the success you already have with the truest, soulful, mystical parts of yourself. Are you ready to rise up as the leader you were born to be? Then join me. My soulful friends, the time is now for you to rise up and shine your light. The world needs you. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Soulful Entrepreneurs Club podcast, and this week I am going to be talking to you about networking for introverts. So I sent out a poll in to my email list and also I posted on social media asking what is it that you would like to learn more about, and this topic is the one that got the most votes. So I will go deeper into this topic in a class that I'll be having, and the registration details will be in the show notes. It will be on Wednesday, april 17th, at 12 PM Eastern, and it's an hour long class where I'll go in depth into what and how to network as an introvert effectively so that you can grow, scale and positively impact your business and your life, and so I will go through strategies, some things you must have in place and make sure that you do. But today I wanted to give you something that you can take care of, take and move forward with.

Okay, and so there's some misconceptions about networking and introversion. So one of the misconceptions is that introverts are not good at networking, because when you think about networking, it involves talking to people, involves being around people, and when people, when people think about introverts, they think about someone that likes to be alone, and the reality is introverts like to be around people also. They actually just recharge by being alone. So there are strengths that are unique to introverts that can actually help with being very successful at networking. The challenges come when you try to network like an extrovert or try to emulate someone that is successful but is very different from you, right? So it's really important I always talk about using strategies for your marketing, building your business, whatever you do to make sure that you are utilizing your strengths and expanding on your strengths. And as an introvert, it can be difficult to be in new groups of people, people that you don't know, and then start to build your business, and even though that feels difficult, it is doable and it can be fun and it can be interesting and it can add a lot of richness to your life and to your business.

So first I guess it should be it is important to talk about what networking is. So there's different types of networking. So, first, the one type of networking is industry specific, right? So if you are a consultant, there may be a consultant's group. If you know, there may be a business networking group that is like for the type of business that you're in, right? And so there are industry specific groups. Then a different type of group is more of that general business networking group, and within that there are so many different types. Right, there are your chamber events, there is the organization called BNI, which is Business Networking International that are. You know they have industry exclusive events, so only one person from each industry can be a member of each chapter. There are groups focused on only women. There's like mixed groups. There's all kinds of different types of business networking groups. There are larger groups, there are smaller groups, there are groups that meet weekly, there are groups that meet monthly and all in between, and so those are like what you would consider like the traditional networking group.

And the third type of networking is not necessarily a networking group but is more like what you do in your life. So if you take a class that you're interested in, or if you are in a book club or if you are in different social groups, those are opportunities for you to network as well, and it's because it's building relationships. Now I'm not telling you to go and now try to sell everybody in your network, because in reality you're not selling to that person necessarily. You are presenting the value that you're going to provide and wanting them to refer you to someone in their network. So having that idea of how can I help talking about your business in a way that is it's like just how a person would talk about work, right, it's not that you're like being like icky and salesy, but just like a connection thing. You know some things that you're doing that are interesting, maybe some strategies that you're trying that are fun, or you know people that you've met that are interesting, and so that's another opportunity that is often missed when it comes to networking.

And so when you think about these three types of events, I remember taking a course a while back and being told that you should have all three. Okay, so you should make sure you have an industry specific event, you should have a business networking event, and they even recommended maybe you do a chamber and then an industry specific business networking event, and then also the your regular life, kind of social, social life, like you know, like book clubs and things like that, and of running a business and doing all the things that I do. The thought of being in addition to all the things that I'm doing, to being part of so many groups, it's just overwhelming right. And also, not to mention, I am an introvert myself and it can be draining to be always around people that way for me. So I have to pick and choose what would be the events that I enjoy going to the most and focus on building deep relationships in those groups, and so that is what I'm going to recommend, as an introvert, is don't necessarily use the strategy of let me try to join like as many groups as I can, meet as many people as I can, and like you know, kind of like it's a numbers game and and cause that works for some people. And if you want to do that, maybe when you're just starting out your business, so you can start to build your network. I'm not telling you not to, I just know that if you are truly an introvert, that it's not sustainable over time, and so you know, as long as you know, okay, if I do this, it's for a short term, but in the long run I want to focus on, you know, one or two groups that are business focused or industry focused and then, just you know, utilize relationships in my life, just letting them know what I'm doing, and then you can also use, if you like, a supportive social media platform. So if your client is on Facebook, then you connect with people, you meet and networking on Facebook, and so then you're able to continue that connection there. And of course, there are many other strategies that would make networking effective. This is just the one that I'm going to recommend today, and so you can have something that you can implement immediately.

It is really important to be clear about your goals for going to the event. It's important to not sell everybody and think that you're just selling the people in the room. It is also important that you, um are, um, not adding everyone to your email list, okay, cause that's happened to me many times because that's going to turn the people off and you're actually may have a short-term gain of having someone on your email list, but the long-term relationship that you want to build, that's not going to happen, right, they're not going to trust you. You want to build relationships the way that you, as an introvert like you, most likely like to have deeply connected relationships, and that's why I'm recommending that you focus on a couple of events and build relationships in those events, and relationships of depth, okay, and because then you'll look forward to the events, then you'll be able to um, you know, actually build your network from there. And now that's just one part of it.

And beyond just building those depth, depth of relationship, there are ways that you can grow your network too, right, because if you just stick to two groups and it's the same people over and over again, then you know you're not going to be exposed to new people.

So some groups have visitors and I know that that's helpful to meet new people, and so you want to make sure that, if that's you're a part of a group and they have visitors, that you reach out to visitors that feel like people you want to get to know. And so also, you know, using opportunities that maybe the group has the ability to get together with others in your, in your whole network right Of groups, like there's that possibility going to those things to grow your networks. There's. You know, there's a lot of things that you can do to make it work for you, but starting with making it simple, picking a few, starting to build relationships, familiarity, and then, if you want to know more strategies of how to make it work for you, some other nuances, then register, register to attend the class.

I'd love to see you there. It will be free, it will be an hour and if you have any questions beforehand, feel free to message me and you can send me a message on my website and I will get it and I can add anything that you would that you're desiring onto the class, like any questions you have about networking for introverts. You're desiring onto the class, like any questions you have about networking for introverts, so I will be continuing to talk about this topic and give you more strategies over the next few weeks, and then, of course, the class will go more into depth. So until next time, take good care. Bye.