3 Tips to Start Networking for WOC
Networking is building a supportive community that uplifts your brand
It takes a village to grow our careers and to achieve our goals.
With the uncertainty of the job market, networking can be your best tool.
Having a supportive community will increase your chances of getting that next role or taking that next step toward your goals.
We all know how to email or message someone on LinkedIn, but what really holds us back, and what can set us up for networking success?
It is possible to be great at networking, dare I say enjoyable!
It starts with yourself by checking your mindset, knowing your brand, and identifying your goals.
Give Yourself Permission
True or False?
If we talk about our work, we’re bragging about yourselves. If we need help, we’re a burden.
False!
Talking about your work is an act of self-love. It’s sharing our achievements and displaying our potential.
Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it’s a practice of self-advocacy and a sign of courageous vulnerability.
WOC have been taught to be humble and to be independent. Capitalist patriarchal society programmed us to believe that we can do it all by sheer hard work and determination. But that has led many to burnout, career stagnancy, and unfulfillment.
You don’t need to navigate your career alone.
What do you need to unlearn or release to give yourself permission to ask for help?
For example, one of our clients who had an amazing skip-level sponsor recruited her along with him to a new company. Not only was it a promotion, but we also helped her negotiate a $40K increase in pay!
In her new role, she was confronted by a work bully. She didn’t want to burden her boss and her sponsor, skip-level, with helping her “again” after sponsoring her and now protecting her from this person who was undermining a project she led.
She would say “Damn he’s helped me so much already, I don’t want to bother him.” Even though her sponsor has expressed their support for her.
It took some inner work for her to accept his help, and she now has their support to enforce boundaries. They now have a system where the bully has to go through her skip to get to her. WIN!
2. Create Your Brand
When you love a product or service, how likely are you to share it with your friends?
You tell anyone who has ears and/or you immediately drop the link in your life-saving girl group chat. You’re a brand ambassador for that product.
That’s what we want for your brand!
We want you to grow your Brand Village by sharing your professional and personal brand with people who can spread the word and plant opportunity seeds.
We want people with decision-making power and influence to speak your name and to share your work.
Identifying your brand first is imperative. If you don’t have a clear sense of what you stand for or what you’re about, it will make reaching out to folks murky. We don’t want potential brand ambassadors to guess if they are aligned with you or not.
Take the time to get crystal clear on what your purpose is and why you do what you do.
A common question we get: “I’m multi-passionate. How do I choose?”
You don’t have to choose! Embrace both or all. We are not just one thing.
For example, I’m a leadership coach, Filipino food entrepreneur, and content creator.
I love my day job and supporting WOC leaders and being a Filipino food ambassador is a big part of my identity.
Being a daughter of immigrants, reconnecting and reclaiming my Filipino culture is part of my healing and decolonizing journey. I want to preserve our food heritage for future Filipino-American generations.
When we facilitate leadership workshops, I share these proudly and I hope to 1) invite folx to come eat my food and 2) to check out my TikTok and blog 3) inspire them to embrace their own multifaceted identity.
3. Share Your Goals
Like your brand, get clear on what you want and what your vision is for your brand.
Think about your specific asks for your brand ambassadors based on your vision and goals. Maybe you want to work on that person’s team, or you want to help build that awesome product, or you want to speak at that conference, or you want to get that promotion. All the things.
Whatever it is, start sharing it and invite others to see who you are.
Self-advocacy is a muscle. The more you practice talking about yourself and what you want the easier it will be.
Not only will it help your self-accountability like “Oh shit did I just say that? Guess I gotta do it!” You never know what seeds will sprout or who can help you connect with that person you’ve dreamt about meeting.
When you show up authentically, the people who are for you will show up.
For example, one of our clients already had her foot out the door at her current job. She applied to a new company and saw that the hiring manager was a friend of her ex. Understandably, it gave her a moment of pause and she questioned moving forward.
That hiring manager reached out to our clients' references, an old boss. He immediately connected with our client, and she vulnerably shared how much she wanted that new job and the anxiety of learning about the personal connection.
Her old boss became her Brand Ambassador. He hyped her up by giving her a much-needed pep talk that she still should go for it, and he gave her a glowing reference to her now-new boss!
She needed that extra emotional support and external push of motivation to overcome that temporary roadblock.
We can be pleasantly surprised by how much our community stands by and for us, and it starts by sharing what we need.
If you want to go further in growing and strengthening your network, Real You Leadership has your back! We have a more in-depth workbook that helps you map out your Brand Village and build your scripts to make your ask.
Download our free workbook to start mapping out your Brand Village.
One more thing, we can be part of your Brand Village, too. We invite you to our coaching community by joining our group coaching program for BIPOC Women.
Leadership Coach | Healing-Centered Career Development
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