Jen McAleer is a firm believer in ‘organic’ networking. As Managing Director at multichannel brand agency StartJG, she works with a 200-strong team spread across offices in London, Manchester, Dubai and Hong Kong. Here she explains how natural, organic networking has been vital to the business, and how important it is to approach networking in a genuine way.
When in your career did you realise it was important to have a strong network?
Right from the start of my career it came quite naturally to me to keep in touch with clients and colleagues. However, in the last few years I have realised how important it is to more actively grow and maintain my network. In a tough business market like this one you need people around you that you can trust and relationships which are strong, open and productive – be they with colleagues or clients. Our strong network has helped us better cope in this business climate where it’s ever more important to have a network of people you know you can rely on.
What have been some of the outcomes of building a strong network?
Our business has been built on connections. The majority of our new clients come from recommendations and we also try to employ people via recommendation rather than cold recruitment – we find that culturally this is more successful for us. People who have worked for us recommend us, or clients we have worked with move from one business to another and recommend us within their new organisation.
What advice would you give someone looking to build their network?
I network more naturally with people I genuinely like and enjoy working with. I’m not good at ‘faking it’ or spending time with people I don’t like. I am really uncomfortable walking into a room full of strangers and bandying business cards – it feels too sales-y.
My network has grown organically so my advice would be:
Be genuinely interested in people. Fake networking, where you are just looking to sell something or build your pile of business cards is crass and unproductive.
Build connections with people that interest you, with whom you have good chemistry and where there is a real or potential relationship between you where you both have something to offer each other. Get out of the office and make efforts to meet people, keeping an open mind. I go to everywomanClub events and get involved in conversations and hear new views that help me in my work.
How do you stay in touch with your networks?
I use all kinds of methods – face to face catch ups, inviting people to events, email updates and information shares, phone calls, and LinkedIn which I use both to stay in touch with my own network of people and also to put people in touch with each other.
What advice would you give to someone attending their first networking event?
If you’re feeling nervous or shy before entering the room, give yourself a pep talk – remember you have an interesting job and life. Then go in, get yourself a drink, relax and say hello to someone – it should flow from there and if it’s hard work, deep breath, step away and say hello to someone else! I once heard a hugely successful businesswoman that I’ve always admired and looked up to, tell someone that she’d been petrified about walking into a room full of strangers at an event I was attending – just remember that almost everyone feels the same at these events. Finally, go to an event that you’re genuinely interested in. Find out who else is going if possible and think about who you would like to meet in advance. An event you’re interested in is more likely to be attended by like-minded people. As soon as you begin building your network you realise the extent to which you are connected to many, many people. Once you get to know them you realise that in some degree everyone seems to know everyone else.
