The #1 NETWORKING Mistake Smart Professionals Make—and How to Fix It with Shelly Lombard (ep.192)

Think networking means being transactional or self-promotional? Think again. Shelly Lombard, former Wall Street analyst and founder of Schmooze, shares her playbook for building a strategic network without feeling fake. You’ll learn how to reconnect with weak ties, build visibility on LinkedIn, and follow up in a way that feels natural, not awkward.

Ready to speak up, stand out, and lead with gravitas? Join my 6-week Women’s Personal Branding Masterclass, starting Oct 15. Register by Aug. 15 and save $250 with code EARLYBIRDFALL at TalkAboutTalk.com.

CONNECT WITH ANDREA 

• Website: TalkAboutTalk.com
• LinkedIn – Andrea: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/
• LinkedIn – Talk About Talk: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/
• Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/
• Podcast – Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503
• Podcast – Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369

CONNECT WITH SHELLY

• Website: https://schmooze.biz/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellylombard/
• Newsletter: Schmooze https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/schmooze-7018971677694840833/

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• The Lost Art of Connecting by Susan McPherson: https://amzn.to/46d84X1
• F*ck Being Humble by Stefanie Sword-Williams: https://amzn.to/46O8kfa

TRANSCRIPTION

 Shelly Lombard: Reach out to those weak ties. Say every week, three people, somebody I worked with 10 years ago, I’m just gonna ping them. Hey, thought of you. That kind of thing. It’s only transactional when you’re not keeping in touch with people. 

Andrea Wojnicki – Talk About Talk: If you think networking is just schmoozing at cocktail parties or collecting LinkedIn connections, you’re gonna wanna hear what my guest has to say. Shelly Lombard spent 30 years on Wall Street making high-stakes investment calls and building a career that, frankly, most people would envy. However, by her own admission, she did some things wrong.

Here’s What You’ll Learn

In this conversation that you’re about to hear, Shelly opens up about the missed relationships that could have completely changed the trajectory of her career and how she finally learned to stop believing that just doing the good work would earn her a seat at the table. If you’ve ever hesitated to reach out or worried about bothering someone, then this episode will change the way you think.

You’re gonna get practical tips to grow your network without feeling pushy or fake or self-promotional, and you’ll walk away knowing exactly what you need to do to build real relationships that open real doors. If this is your first time here, I’m Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. This is Talk about Talk, where I coach ambitious executives like you to communicate with confidence and credibility.

I also write an email newsletter that you can subscribe to at the link below if you’re on YouTube. Or in the show notes if you’re listening on any other podcast platform. 

So now, without further ado, let me introduce Shelly Lombard, and then we’ll jump right into our conversation. And at the end, as always, I’m gonna summarize with three key learnings that I wanna reinforce with you.

Introducing Shelly Lombard

I met Shelly Lombard on LinkedIn, believe it or not—and let me tell you, Shelly is a force for good.

She worked on Wall Street for over three decades, and early in her career, she was one of only a handful of women specializing in investing in distressed companies. In the early 2000s, she became one of the most quoted automotive analysts on Wall Street, frequently appearing in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNBC.

After her Wall Street career, she began serving on corporate boards, including the board of Bed Bath & Beyond, among others. Shelly recently launched Schmooze, an initiative that supports and encourages professional women to build strong business networks and close the gap between where they are in their careers—and where they want to be, whether that’s a board seat, the C-suite, or a career pivot.

Schmooze offers mini masterclasses in networking—and yes, I’ve personally led one of them. Let me tell you, Shelly has created something really special. She also hosts Schmooze events that serve as an alternative to the golf outings and sporting events that men have traditionally used to build business relationships.

Thank you so much, Shelly, for being here today to talk with me and the Talk about Talk listeners about networking.

SL:  I am thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me. 

AW: I’m so excited about having the opportunity to talk to you in person. It’s virtual, but we’re one-on-one here. I really admire what you’re doing on LinkedIn.

Before I pressed record, I was sharing with Shelly how much I enjoy reading her posts on LinkedIn. She shows personality, and you can tell that what she’s doing brings her joy, and then it, in turn, brings the rest of us joy. In fact, last night I read one of her posts to my teenage daughter, and I made her laugh.

Shelly, thank you for making LinkedIn a better place. 

SL: Yeah, and teenagers are tough too, so she, yeah, I’m impressed because she laughed. That made me feel good, ’cause teenagers are tough. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

AW: Toughest critics. Toughest critics. Yeah. Okay, so I just read your introduction, but I want to ask you, after spending over three decades in Wall Street. How did networking specifically help you succeed in such a competitive, intense environment? 

The Missed Opportunities That Sparked a Mission

SL: Yeah, so you know what? What I will say is that I was not as successful as I could have been. I was not intentional about networking. I wasn’t strategic about it. I could have been much more successful if I was. I had a good run, but I would’ve been more successful. My career would’ve gone maybe in different directions, et cetera. I approached networking. I was very happenstance, half ass, oh, I like you. Let’s have lunch. But there was no really, oh, let me think through. I probably should get to know this person.

I did belong to a small group of women. At that time, there were only a handful of women doing what I was doing on Wall Street. Women on Wall Street were there. There weren’t as many of us. But what I was doing, which was investing in distressed companies, there were even fewer. So we formed a little group and we would get together for dinner, every other month or something like that.

But that was about the extent of it. And I think one reason I wasn’t more intentional is that I’m an introvert. People don’t believe that, but I am definitely an introvert, and I’m shy. So that’s different from being an introvert. I’m an introvert, and I’m shy. And then the second reason is I didn’t know any better.

Like my parents were teachers, and it was expected that you would go to college and then get a good job, and then, hopefully, stay there for your entire career. But nobody told me anything about networking or forming relationships. They didn’t know that wasn’t their world, and I didn’t figure it out on my own.

So I felt like I missed out on opportunities that I didn’t even know I was missing. I’ll tell you a quick story. Two guys I should have kept in touch with, and a lot of the people I worked with over three decades did really well on Wall Street, and I didn’t really; I wasn’t strategic enough to stay in touch with any of them.

One was a guy named Chad, our bank merged with another bank. He was my boss’s boss. Great guy. And he, as part of the merger, lost his job. Great guy. He landed on his feet somewhere else. I should have kept in touch with him, but I didn’t. Another guy who after the merger, replaced this guy, Chad, his name was Jimmy.

And Jimmy was my boss’s boss. Like he was way up there. And so when the two banks merged. They had a meeting for everybody who was vice president and above, and I think I might’ve been the only person of color in the room, certainly the only woman of color in the room. But as a result, Jimmy knew me, and this was years ago.

I’m sure it would be different these days, maybe not so much different. But as a result, the good thing was Jimmy knew who I was, so I would get on the elevator and he might be on there already, be like, Shelly, hey. And then he liked FaceTime. So he was one of those people who liked you to be at your desk for long hours on trading floors.

People usually left six o’clock, but I might be there like seven o’clock, and he would walk around just to see who was still working. He liked that and he would always talk to me, Hey Shelly, how you doing? And I would just say, Hey, and go back to work. I never engaged with him. I never tried to develop a relationship.

So like I said, I’m shy. I’m an introvert, and I just didn’t know any better, and I didn’t figure out it out on my own. And had he obviously was reaching out to me. Had I taken him up on that, I might still be sitting at, it’s now JP Morgan, but I might still be sitting there and it would’ve made a world of difference in my career.

AW: So hindsight’s 2020. You identified Shelly the one thing that you did do right was you connected with some women and you had dinners with them, every second month, which is great. But would you say it’s true, maybe then that you started Schmooze because of some regrets that you had about how you managed your career, specifically in terms of networking?

And if so, I see you nodding your hair, your head there. What gaps are you aiming to fill for women in business through Schmooze? 

SL: Yeah. So you’re absolutely dead on, right? I started Schmooze to help other women avoid the mistakes that I made. And so a turning point for me was working from home. So, toward the latter part of my career, I worked for a small boutique that researched investments.

And, fidelity was a client, Goldman Sachs was a client, and they let us work from home. And so working from home was great for my life and for managing my kids, and I didn’t have to commute into Manhattan, et cetera. But when I reared my head from that job, when that job ended right around the time of the financial crisis, a little bit after that, I realized I had let my contacts go dormant.

Like people would call me and say, Hey, meet me in Manhattan for a drink. And I’m like, girl, I’m. Sitting in my pajamas, with a baseball cap on, and I’m getting ready to take my son to soccer. The second thing, inflection point was when I left Wall Street and I started serving on corporate boards, and once I did, I learned that 80% of corporate board rules are filled through relationships.

One woman said to me, when somebody leaves, when one guy leaves a corporate board, the other guys in the room look around at each other and they go, okay, who do we know? And so if you are not known to them, if you don’t have a relationship with them, they obviously go to a guy in their network. So those things hit if I didn’t realize it before, those two things, working from home and corporate boards. hammer the point home. 

So what I’m trying to do with schmooze is one, encourage women to do it and to understand how important it is. And also to give them tools. So helping them to learn what I call networking hacks, like curiosity. So one of the things that kept me from inviting Chad or Jimmy out for a drink or a cup of coffee was like, I’m like, okay, now I gotta talk to him.

What do I talk to him about? And curiosity is a hack. I didn’t have to be charming. I didn’t have to be like knowledgeable. I  thought I had to be all these things to have a conversation with them if I had engaged with Jimmy over what about what the bank was doing, ’cause he was a real deal junkie. He loved deals and being a big bank and a big kahuna in the market.

If I had started saying to him, Hey, so I hear we’re working on a deal for Procter and Gamble or something like that. What’s going on with that? He would’ve talked to me for hours. So I didn’t have to be smart. I didn’t have to come across as charming and knowledgeable about the market.

Curiosity would’ve helped me to build a relationship with him, and we’ve actually had a schmooze class on networking internally and how you can use curiosity to build your internal network, and it would’ve made all the difference with Jimmy. 

Making the Shift from Transactional to Intentional

AW: I love that word, curiosity, because I think it’s very, instructive. It’s very actionable for people, ’cause we’ve all heard that if we wanna engage in a great conversation, we need to ask questions. But actually labeling that as curiosity, what can I be curious about with this person? I think that’s brilliant. So you’ve labeled, I guess now the first hack, and you spoke about your story about it being particularly difficult to network when you were working from home.

Do you have any hacks for the listeners out there, including myself who want to network when they’re mostly working online at home? 

SL: Yeah. So I think you have to be, it’s, it was great for, my life wasn’t so great for my network. Visibility on LinkedIn makes all the difference in the world. So really lean into those tech tools.

People talk about being zoomed out and too much Zoom, et cetera. But that was one of my issues back when I was working from home, is that Zoom didn’t exist. LinkedIn was a baby. So using those tools like Zoom to have coffees, LinkedIn, one of the things I intended to talk about today, which I’ve learned really makes a difference in social media, has made it possible, is being visible.

And so what I would say to people working from home is be intentional about it. I wasn’t so people I was running into, so when I worked at the place where I was working from home, we had a PR person. So we our revenue model was subscriptions. So other firms did trades, and they got commissions.

Our firm was strictly subscription-based, so people like Goldman Sachs at Fidelity, and hedge funds had subscriptions. So we had a PR person who would get us. In the paper. And I would, I was always quoted in the New York Times, the journal, I covered the auto industry. I was quoted in the auto news.

And so people knew who I was, but I never followed up. Like I never, kind of took advantage of that. And so what I would say is working from home visibility is an important thing, and whether that’s being visible inside your company or outside your company, I was visible, but I’m, I’m happy to talk later about following up and the importance of following up.

SL: I left there, that company, and lots of people knew my name, but I hadn’t followed up and built relationships with any of them. So I think working from home, you need to be more intentional. About relationship building, and you also need to be more intentional about being visible both internally and externally.

AW: Oh gosh. Even in those quick anecdotes that you shared and stories of regrets and things that you were doing well, things that were going on. There’s so many hacks to, I think in the conclusion here, I’m gonna be listing what the hacks are. So there’s networking inside your organization, and then also being conscious of networking inside and outside of your organization.

There’s the point, I think, that was subtly made. By you here, or maybe implicitly made, which is when something happens, like a press release, or you attend an event that could become a catalyst for you to share on social media, right? So nowadays, if you were interviewed, you could show the video or a photo of it, or even just talk about it right on social media to reinforce.

So use these little events or big events as a catalyst, a topic for you to share with your audience. I’m wondering, just to back up for a minute, do you think this is different? For women versus men, Shelly. 

SL: Yeah. And remind me to talk more about visibility ’cause that’s another hack that I make sure I wanna talk about you.

You started talking about it being visible, but yeah, absolutely. So I think it’s two things. With women, it’s a mindset. So we are trained to be good girls and pleasers, and we’re not comfortable being transactional because it implies that you’re not nice. I remember when I first started, so I got into this group before this group of women, who invested in distressed companies, existed.

I remember being in a deal with another woman, and I reached out to her, Lisa, and I reached out to her and I said, Hey, you wanna have lunch? And then I felt Ooh, I felt like I didn’t want think that I wanted something. And so I remember saying, I just wanted to, I, I just thought, we should have lunch.

And she was like, it’s okay. So I think women have a tougher time being transactional, and men don’t, they’ll take you to a Knicks game, they’ll take you to a golf game, and then they’re not. woo. If you reach out to them three months later, and hey, you know what I noticed, so and can you introduce me?

I think also too, in terms of mindset, women think our work speaks for us, and it’s, it does not, your boss doesn’t always know what you’re doing. People in other companies that do what you do definitely don’t know what you’re doing. People outside your company definitely don’t know. So I think with women, it’s, we are afraid to be transactional and ask for stuff, and we’re also thinking, oh, my work speaks for itself. I think the other thing is time. So my sister has a thing, all roads lead to mom, all roads lead to mom. You are the emotional support person. You are the person who finds the summer camps very often. Maybe it’s different, in different, situations, different families.

But I know in my family, my, my husband was involved. He would ferry people of soccer, et cetera. But I was a person who thought, oh, it’s time for Lindsay to get braces. Oh, you know what, Andrew needs to get his physical now so he can be ready for soccer in the fall. Yeah. Oh, Lindsay needs an SAT tutor.

Yeah. I have never sat next to a man on a trading floor, and trading floors are open, so you don’t have an office and everybody’s, you can hear everybody’s conversation. I’ve never sat next to a man on a trading floor and heard him make a phone call about a birthday party. A clown, a pony? What time? What time does the bouncy house need to get there?

Do I need extra insurance? That’s totally left to mom, and I had a little nanny at some point, but there’s certain things you can’t delegate. like finding a tutor or recognizing that the kid needs a tutor. So I didn’t have time to play golf, didn’t have time to get good enough at it to use it as a networking tool.

So I think the two differences for women are mindset. And then also time, because when all roads lead to you, I think I read something a couple of years ago, it said, moms don’t do everything, but they make sure everything gets done. So even if it’s you saying to the babysitter, oh, can you do X, Y, and Z?

A lot of times, that falls on us. And so I think women have to approach networking, be more intentional about it. It may not just happen. And I think we also have to be more intentional about how we think about it. 

AW: Yeah. So when I asked the question at first, Shelly, I thought you were gonna say, yeah, because it is harder for women because there are fewer of us which, which is your experience, and I believe it is in many industries, still the same. And you didn’t even go near that. You’re talking about the transactional nature of men’s relationships with each other about how women are assuming that their hard work is gonna speak for itself.

And then this all roads lead back to mom. So here’s the thing, if you’re aware of these things, then it can almost become a superpower because you can work to un to undo them or to at least mitigate their negative impact. I just wanna share in terms of this transactional relationship, that’s a different way of saying something that I had a conversation with, actually, a classmate of mine back when I was a student.

And she was talking about how, she first introduced this concept to me. She said, at work, men are friendly and women are friends. And I was like, oh. And that’s a good thing and a bad thing, ’cause we should be friends. We should be thinking long term. Yeah. But also we shouldn’t be taking things so per, when we’re friends, we’re taking things personal. Men aren’t taking things personally. It is. And that fits beautifully, I think, with your transaction points. So I just wanted to highlight that. 

SL: Yeah, that’s actually a great point. That’s a great point. 

AW: Yeah, I love it too. It has so many implications, and if you don’t know what it means, if you haven’t thought about it that way, maybe it’s less relevant for you. But people right away, I find go, oh, and then suddenly you’ll see it everywhere. and the whole thing about women putting their head down and doing the work, and then not being recognized or compensated for it because they’re not speaking for their work. There’s this beautiful quote.

You must speak for your work. Your work doesn’t speak for itself. And furthermore, if you’re a leader, it’s not just about you doing the work; it’s about getting the work done, which means you can delegate. 

SL: Yeah. Two things I’d like to add to what you said is one, think about networking, not just networking with other women, but networking with men, and so I belong to a host of women’s groups, but I think that, look, most of the people on boards are men.

So if I wanna get a corporate board seat, I gotta be one of the names that comes up when the men in the group say, okay, who do we know? ’cause we have a, we need an audit chair. And the other thing that I would say is that I think that we often think of relationships as being transactional because we are notaking the time to invest in people, in, in other words that it’s not just, and, I guess the thing is, or invest in ourselves and I’ll step back and make this point. Women in terms of feeling it’s transactional or it’s manipulative. That’s the word that I was looking for.

So it’s transactional when you deal with someone else, but if you don’t let your work speak for itself and you’re speaking for it, you’re being manipulative. And what I say to people. It’s only manipulative if you’re not doing the work. You know what I mean? We resent the people who would try to get ahead on their smile alone.

They’re charming, they manage up, and then they’re not really doing anything. They’re sleeping in their cubicle, or they’re talking on the phone, or whatever. But if you are doing the work, then it’s not, it’s not manipulative. And so you should. not feel like, oh, I gotta let my work speak for itself, because if you’re actually doing the work, take pride in speaking about it.

And so those are the two things that you said that kind of made me think about you need to network with men and women. And two, speaking up for your work is not a bad thing. You’re not being manipulative. And when you’re actually doing the work, 

AW: I heard a man quoted on the Tim Ferriss podcast, and he said. When you’re more junior in your career? I actually, this first part of it I added because I believe when you’re more junior in your career, there are people looking over your shoulder to see that you’re doing the work, and then you get promoted once you hit mid-career. This is, this was his point. If you don’t speak for your work, you might as well have not done it. Ooh, drop the mic. 

SL: That’s a drop the mic drop. Yes. Because nobody knows. Absolutely. Nobody knows. That’s a great point. 

AW: Yeah. I love that one. So it’s inspiring. 

Why Visibility is the New Superpower

Let’s go back to the visibility point, though. You were talking about how it’s about relationships, and it’s also about visibility. So do you have any other hacks for how, how do you personally, or how do you coach the folks that are part of Schmooze to boost their invisibility? It boosts their visibility, whether it be online again or in person. 

SL: So I guess I learned along the way that visibility is a relationship hack. It’s a networking hack. It’s a networking multiplier. And so that’s a way that technology has made networking easier. And what I would say to people is, you need to be visible. Post on LinkedIn, and I’m gonna do a whole class on what to post on LinkedIn and tips for posting, and what to say, and all of that kind of stuff.

But when you do that, you attract a network to you. So people who I don’t know will click and follow me. Click and ask to connect with me. And I don’t even need to reach out because you know my posting. And if you’re not posting, maybe you send professional updates to people who you know. So it’s just email.

So instead of, oh, I’m not comfortable posting on LinkedIn, but I have 50 people that I work with or used to work with, that I’m just gonna send ’em an email, B, C, everybody. And hey, just wanted to let you know what I was up to. And that helps you attract a network because maybe they will say, Oh, that’s interesting. Let me let Sally know what you’re doing these days. The other thing is you help people remember you. And so somebody who had, I posted something and he had a better comment than my post was, he said, networking is about being remembered when it counts. So it’s one thing to have all of these contacts and connections on LinkedIn, but if something comes up that you would be interested in, but that person who’s in your network, but they don’t even remember you, then that’s a problem. So visibility is one thing that LinkedIn and email has made easier. It’s easier for you to be seen and be remembered. I am gonna, do a class.

I was actually, we were saying before we started recording that, before I was a banker, I was a writer. So, LinkedIn, writing for LinkedIn, and writing for my newsletters comes a little bit easier for me. But there’s certainly tips I’ve learned along the way that can help you be visible. And like I said, people whine about too much Zoom, but one, it’s how I met you. Yeah. It enabled me to connect with people all around the country and the world. Yeah. I just interviewed two women who have a company called Power Suit. They’re based in New Zealand. I’m publishing that interview on a Friday, and they talked about networking with the women in their group.

The kinds of things that they may be struggling with, et cetera. So the ability to do coffee on Zoom would have changed my life. When I was working from home, it just wasn’t available. But, and so now I won’t say people don’t have any excuse, but because as people are still, especially women, press for time, et cetera, but you do have many more tools than you had 10 years ago.

AW: It’s not that there’s no excuse, but maybe there’s less excuse. So, back to your point, I love this. I wanna underscore this point about being remembered at the right moment when it counts. This goes back to something that you and I have talked about in the past, right? Which is establishing and reinforcing your brand.

So, Shelly, you have expertise in networking now, and you said in the automotive industry, in the financial and banking industries. So, how on LinkedIn, if someone comes up with this list of five things that they wanna make sure people know about them, do you have any tips of what to share on LinkedIn?

SL: Yeah, so what I would say is it depends on your goal. So I don’t post a lot about corporate boards, unless it’s networking your way into a corporate board. But I don’t post a lot on being on corporate boards or that kind of stuff, ’cause right now I won’t say I’m not looking for a board seat. If one drops in my lap, that’d be great, but I what I would suggest is pick a lane.

Like you can’t be known for five or six different things. You are known for communications, and then you expand out from that. I’m known for networking and so people lane, that helps you make your posts consistent and people will remember you. Like people always say to me, oh, we need somebody to teach on networking.

And I have to say, let me step back and say I am not a thought leader or an expert on networking. I have learned from people like you, I’ve learned from the almost a hundred women I’ve interviewed for my schmooze newsletter, and I’ve detected some patterns and said, okay, this makes sense. This is what works.

And so I approach LinkedIn. You know what, let me tap into the experts, ’cause I’m not an expert at this. And so that’s how I pro, approached it. And now I’m starting like curiosity was something multiple women, when I interviewed them, they mentioned it. Curiosity. Oh. I said, why is this person take you under their wing?

And you, they became your sponsor. Oh, I was curious about what was going on in the company and how we were making money, and this pivot we were gonna do. So after seeing curiosity pop up various places. I was like, okay, that’s a relationship, that’s a networking hack. Particularly internal. So what I would say is I am, I’m not a thought leader on networking, but there’s certain themes that I have learned and that I have distilled from my conversations with women who were much better at it than I was. And those are the kinds of things that I want to share with other women. 

AW: So, Shelly, I think you are describing something that I actually just shared, in a bootcamp that a couple hours ago I was teaching in a bootcamp on LinkedIn, and I asked everyone in the bootcamp to rate themselves on a score of zero to 10 on their LinkedIn profile and then also on their activity on LinkedIn.

And they were all way below five, like zero outta 10, three outta 10, whatever. And most of ’em said they avoid it. They don’t really know what to say. And your point here is that the thought leadership doesn’t have to come from you. You can share your interest, expertise, and passion in something by sharing other people’s perspectives, right?

So I said the first thing I want you to do is go to the home page on LinkedIn, start scrolling through your feed. Find an article or a post that’s interesting, and then repost it with comments. Not just repost it, and right repost it with a comment that’s I absolutely endorse this, and I would add this one other point, or I absolutely endorse this, particularly this one thing. And then you are implicitly sharing your expertise. So, Shelly, with those 100 women who you’ve interviewed, you are sharing your expertise through them. I think it’s a brilliant strategy 

SL: And that’s a great point. I. Didn’t. That’s how Schmooze started. I hadn’t done the networking, didn’t know how to do it, so I started interviewing women, and so I gathered things.

It also was a great way to increase my network, ’cause the women I interviewed were oh, okay. and so now many of them, in my network, so to speak. And yeah, I launched mine. From, I won’t say a place of weakness, but I guess a place of curiosity. I didn’t do this well, and so here are some women who have done it well.

Here are the themes that I’ve found. And so that’s how Schmooze started is just a LinkedIn newsletter. But absolutely, I would pick a lan,e and I think targeting it to networking or whatever works for you was one of the keys. if I’m just introducing, or I’m just interviewing, managing women who’ve made it, so to speak.

They could be talking about anything, sponsor, mentors, anything. But if you boil it down to one thing, and now I’m known for networking. Now, some things coming out of that, or networking to get a board role. And then, one of our popular classes was being an advisor to a startup, which is a way to expand your network.

So there are things that come off of that. But what I would say to people, similar to you, scroll through, see what people are talking about, even if you don’t have an expertise, like I’m not a thought leader, I don’t think. Now I’m starting to see themes. So I’m like, okay, lemme put this out there.

Visibility networking hack. Let me put this out there. And so I picked a lane, and I just started posting what other women were saying about it, about that lane, which was networking. And that really resonated with people. And I’m not. There’s a lot about women in management going on out here, but I picked Elaine and then was very consistent about posting on that.

As you said, even if it was the thoughts of other people, because it was like, wow, she did it right. I didn’t let me share what she did. 

AW: Yeah. Shelly, you have convictions, you have opinions, you do have thoughts on strategic networking that would definitely qualify you as being a thought leader. I truly think as soon as you start teaching something, and this is actually another hack, right?

As soon as you start teaching something, you are demonstrating leadership in that area. And this is something that I sometimes coach, especially women who are struggling with demonstrating leadership, right? They’re, they’ve been told, you’re ready for the promotion, you just need to demonstrate leadership.

And they’re like, how do I do that? How do I do that? And I said, one thing is find something that you can coach and mentor, and teach people about, and then you’ll be seen as a leader. And I think that’s what’s, that’s what you’re doing. I admire what you’re doing so much Shelly. 

How to Take Action Today

Before we get into the three rapid-fire questions I wanna ask you this, maybe perhaps overwhelming question, which is.

If someone who’s listening here is ready to level up their networking strategy this year, or in the short term, what is the first thing, or one of the most important thing,s that you would tell them to do starting today? 

SL: Okay. So I think the most important thing is schedule a time to do it. Don’t expect that it’s gonna happen, like just, organically. So maybe 4:00 PM on Friday when you’re starting to wind down and look forward to the weekend, or maybe on a Sunday afternoon where the kids are doing something else, or you are on the sideline of your child’s soccer game and you’re chatting with the other parents, you can steal a minute and do a few things, connect with a few people.

So, schedule a time to do it. Step some small goals. So we just recently, that’s why recently started a schmooze accountability group where people can meet and say, okay, these are three things I wanna get done this week. So set out some very achievable small goals every week that you can meet.

And a couple other things I wanna make sure to mention, weak ties. I think it’s LinkedIn and Harvard did research on where most people find jobs, and they find them through people they don’t know as well. They don’t find them through close ties. I’m not gonna find them through my friend Sharon, who I went to business school with ad we are really close because we have the same network, but it’s people that they don’t know well. So I would start, if I’m gonna set aside the time and start, do some small goals, reach out to those weak ties, say every week, three people, somebody I worked with 10 years ago, who I haven’t talked to in a while, I’m just gonna ping them.

Hey, thought of you. That kind of thing. Thinking of you, it’s only transactional when you’re not keeping in touch with people. Another thing you may wanna do is send a professional update and then schedule a coffee catch-up. Hey, just wanted to let you know this is what I’m up to now. Let’s grab a Zoom coffee and catch up.

And then I would also say go to at least one in-person event per month. If you can . Read Andrea’s article about how to nail your self-introduction, and people tell me, read that first because that will equip you for going to a meetup. But it doesn’t have to be in your industry or in your functional area.

It doesn’t have to be the National Association of Accountants and your accountant or it doesn’t have to be people in AI and you’re in AI. I often get invited to things about women and wealth. And it’s like I did the Wall Street thing. I’m not interested, but I go anywhere. Go anyway. Because in addition to strategy, being a part of networking, serendipity is as well.

When you meet people, you meet their network. In addition to that introducing people to other people in your network is really helpful, so you can help other people. So I’m going to something, somebody just invited me to something, women in their money, or something like that. And so I’m gonna go because I don’t know who I’m gonna meet.

So it may not fit into my strategy, but I may, there may be serendipity, like I may stumble across somebody and happens to me all the time, who like, oh, didn’t know you were gonna be here. Or, oh, even though you do that, I don’t do that. But you know what, this is how we could work together. So strategy and serendipity.

And can I just say one thing? So, just to recap, schedule a time to do it. Set some small goals. Don’t forget about weak ties. It’s only transactional if you’re not, keeping in touch with people. It feels less transactional if you are not reaching out to ’em once every 10 years. So send some thinking of you, thought of you, LinkedIn messages or e-mails, maybe a professional update, and then go to one in-person event per month.

Can I say one other thing before we go to our rapid-fire questions? Yes. Yes. Follow up. One of our most popular Schmooze courses is the Fortune is in the follow-up. After you meet someone, LinkedIn or we introduce each other to each other on LinkedIn and you had a coffee chat or you met ’em in person, do a, oh, it was such so great to meet you, 24 or 48 hours after then Comment on their posts, re-share their posts like you said, oh, so and so said this. I thought it was so insightful. Let me re-share it with some comments. And then we recently had a session with Susan McPherson, who wrote the book, The Lost Art of Connecting. And she talked about approaching it. And this also takes it out of the realm of being transactional or being like a bad person or manipulative person.

The whole thing is, how can I help? Even if the person isn’t active on LinkedIn, you can forward articles, information about conferences. It doesn’t have to be work-related. If you and small talk is helpful because you’re not connecting with a title, you’re connecting with a person. So you know, if they’ve said they’re from Chicago, send ’em something on the White Sox.

If they said they’re planning a trip to New Orleans, I’m from New Orleans, you can send ’em an org article on the 10 best restaurants in New Orleans. So your follow-up doesn’t have to be work-related. One huge follow-up hack is introducing people to in your network to each other. So in addition to saying, how can I help?

Saying to them, would it be helpful if I introduce you to so and and one point that Susan makes in her book is that you make people feel seen. It’s obvious if you introduce people to each other, you notice them, you notice, made a note of what was important to them, and you try to be helpful so they feel seen.

And that has really been helpful to me in terms of following up, introducing people in your network to each other. So even though I don’t need anything from you, I don’t, we are not even doing the same thing, but I know somebody who is doing the same thing at you as you, let me introduce you, and that’s where the serendipity comes in. And also the follow-up. 

AW: I love it. You know what you made me think when you were saying that Shelly is in the same way that if you don’t talk about your work, you might as well have not have done it. If you don’t follow up with someone after you make a new connection, you might as well have not met them.

SL: Oh my goodness. That is amazing. Yes, absolutely. I learned more sitting on you. Yeah, that those three insights are worth the price of that mission. It is those, you said a couple of things that resonated with me. Fabulous. Absolutely. 

Rapid Fire Questions

AW: Shelly, back at you. I got, I’m gonna say this again, reading your posts on LinkedIn, always make me smile and you make me think. You do make me think, right? So, thank you, and let’s move on to the five rapid-fire questions. So the first one, I already know the first part of the answer because you already said it, but maybe not the second part. The question is, are you an extrovert or an introvert? And how does that affect your communication? 

SL: I’m definitely an introvert, as I said, and I’m shy, which is different from being an introvert. People always say that to me. I’m my best one-on-one, like in a podcast. I’m best when I’m speaking to thousands of people, ’cause it’s not, I’m at my most self-conscious when I am talking to a small group, like 10 people. But I definitely am an introvert. An introvert, an extrovert is more about how you, recharge yourself.

And I recharge myself by being alone. And that has had a huge impact on my networking. I have to be much more conscious. But, somebody said this to me. One of the women I interviewed for Schmooze she said, introverts are not introverted in their area of expertise. And so I’m less of an introvert now than I was when I worked on Wall Street because I’m all into schmooze and I love what I’m talking about, and I love what I’m doing, which is why I don’t come across as an introvert now. And I probably did on Wall Street ’cause I was much, I wasn’t in my zone, and now I’m in my zone. 

AW: Oh yes. That’s a great way of putting it. I can see you’re in your zone. Okay, second question. What are your communication pet peeves, things that really annoy you? 

SL: You know what? I don’t think I have one. I don’t think I have one. I was a communications grad on a major undergrad, and I am a voracious reader. Yeah, I don’t think I have a communications pet peeve. I can’t think of one. 

AW: So you’re the second person recently that I’ve interviewed that said that, and I have to say, I admire the fact that you don’t get annoyed.

SL: Yeah, I really don’t. I’ll read somebody’s LinkedIn post and I’ve said, oh, it would’ve been more effective if she did this, and this. But it doesn’t annoy me. and again, I think it comes from being in my zone. ’cause now I’m open to pretty much anything. I’m like, this is interesting.

That’s interesting. I’m curious about that. So I don’t really, the only thing I think that bothers me is the lack of communication. So, my husband is never on LinkedIn, and I’m like, dude, he’s getting ready to retire. I’m like, if you want to do something different, you gotta put yourself out there. And my pet peeve would probably only be the lack of communication.

Like my husband’s not on any social media at all. And I’m like, if you are trying to start a new chapter in your life, pick up your LinkedIn messages. You know what I mean? And I think that. is more of oh, frustration to me than, some stumbling in communication. 

AW: Okay. third and last rapid fire question, is there a podcast or a book that you find yourself recommending to other people lately?

SL: Yeah, so a couple, and now that I have been on yours, I will be recommending this ’cause I know you’re a communication expert, which so many people need. There’s a book called F*** Being Humble, and she came and talked to the Schmooze community. It’s Stefanie Sword Williams, and it’s about self-promotion and how self-promotion is not a dirty word.

Another one is The Lost Art of Connecting, and that’s Susan McPherson. She did a, also did a Schmooze session, probably a few weeks ago. So those two, one of the ones that I like and it has to do, more about building a business, is falling in love with the problem, not the solution. So in other words.

And it can relate to helping people. It’s about, you know what, let me see what they need. If you approach networking from, how can I help you? Would it be helpful if I connected you to this? You’re falling in love with the person’s problem and offering them a solution. And so that book was more about building a business, but I absolutely loved it. And I go back to it over and over again with my business. Am I falling in love with my solution rather than is this solution helpful to people who are members of Schmooze? 

AW: Okay. I’m gonna put links to those books in the show notes. I’m gonna ask you one last question, Shelly. Is there anything, any suggestions or advice you wanna leave with the talk about, talk listeners related to? I guess succeeding in their networking. 

SL: I would just say, even though I’m shy. Social media has made, look, even an introvert can hit click, and so the introverts among us, social media is a gift because you really don’t have to be out there at 10 events a month. You really just have to focus on being visible on LinkedIn.

Now, it’s very helpful if you’re out there visible in person as well, but even I can hit click. And so that’s one of the reasons that one of the things that’s helped me to get into my zone. And so what I would say to people is just get out there, and if I can do it, and in addition to be shy and being shy and introvert, I’m also a little bit socially awkward.

I would rather have my nose buried in a book somewhere than to be doing anything. That’s my a book in the beach is like my ultimate, that’s how I recharge myself. But if I can get out here and do it and learn to enjoy it, I think other people can as well. I’m about as far, I’m not totally on the introvert spectrum, but I’m certainly like on the introvert, introverted, more introverted than extroverted, and even introverts can do this.

And I guess one last thing. If somebody commented on one of my posts, if you’re not doing this, you’re gambling with your career. You gotta, you have to, you can’t just put your head down and work if you’re not doing this. There is going to come a point, like it came with me, where I needed a network and I didn’t have one.

I got laid off four times on Wall Street. The first three times people found me, there was no LinkedIn. They called people who knew me, and they sought me out and made me job offers the fourth time after working from home for eight years. My phone did not ring. And so you wanna get on this before you need it.

You wanna dig the well before you need the water. And so not only can introverts do it, and I think the, a large, the majority of the world identifies as being an introvert, whether that’s true or not, but you have to do it because if you don’t do it, there’s gonna come a time when you’re gonna need that network.

This world is changing so rapidly and so fast. The people who work in the federal government who thought they had a job for life turns out they didn’t have a job for life. It’s really critical, and you can get a lot of joy out. It don’t think of it as building contacts.

Think of it as relationships. And so not only will you enjoy meeting other people, but build that network before you need it ‘cause at some point, if you don’t need it, your kid don’t need it, your spouse will need it. Do it. 

AW: Wonderful advice. Shelly, I wanna say thank you. It was so enjoyable to hang out with you here and to have this conversation one-on-one. I hope we can do it again. Thank you. 

SL: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Post-Interview Recap

AW: Isn’t Shelly fantastic? I encourage you to follow Shelly on LinkedIn if you’re not following her already. And now I’m gonna share three key learnings that I wanna reinforce for you.

1. Pick A Lane and Be Visible

First, pick a lane. And be visible. Shelly’s suggestion is that you decide on your niche, the thing that you want to be known for, then stay in your lane.

This is about consistency and then visibility. So get out there to live events, write articles, give presentations, and online share your insights on social media. If you’re not comfortable creating your own thought leadership, then you can repost others with your comments. So that’s the first point. Pick a lane and be visible.

2. The Difference Between How Men and Women Network

The second point that I wanna reinforce is the difference between men and women that Shelly outlined in terms of how they network. She mentioned three things. Men have no issue with being transactional. Meanwhile, many women are focused on creating relationships and friendships. Of course, relationships and friendships are good, but sometimes we need to be reminded that it’s okay to be transactional. Shelly highlighted how women often assume that their work speaks for itself. As we said, this can be dangerous. Oftentimes, if you don’t speak for your work, you might as well have not done it. The third point about gender differences is that, as Shelly says.

All roads lead to mom. This can make networking even more challenging. I hope this one is changing. So these gender differences in networking are the second thing that I wanted to reinforce with you.

3. The Fortune is in the Follow-up

The third point is that the fortune is in the follow-up. Shelly highlighted a few times how important it is to close the loop with new contacts and also to stay fresh in the minds of your existing network.

This relates back to the point about visibility. She talked about using small and big events. As a catalyst to follow up with your network, meeting new people. Connect on LinkedIn and close the loop. Read a great article. Share it with your comments. Interviewed for a podcast or an article. Share this with your network.

That’s it for the three key learnings. One, pick a lane and be visible. Two gender differences in networking, and three, the fortune is in the follow-up. Got it. Again, I encourage you to connect with Shelly on LinkedIn. As I mentioned, Shelly and her work with Schmooze. Make LinkedIn a better place. And while you’re there, connect with me too.

Thanks for listening and talk soon.

The post The #1 NETWORKING Mistake Smart Professionals Make—and How to Fix It with Shelly Lombard (ep.192) appeared first on Talk About Talk.