Who You Should Be Talking To (And Why You're Probably Talking to the Wrong People)

Building a network isn't about collecting the most contacts — it's about being intentional about who's actually in your circle. Most people only talk to who's comfortable, not who's useful. JP breaks down the three categories of people every professional needs in their network, with real examples for people in energy, sales, and early-career roles.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to a new Lead with Confidence from your host, JP Warren. If this is the first time you're tuning in, these are 10 minutes or less daily episodes on how you can strengthen your soft skills. And soft skills is our ability to connect, communicate, and influence others. And why it's so important? Because that's 85% of our career success. So in this next 10 minutes, I'm going to give you frameworks. Today we're talking about how to build your network properly and who you should be connecting with. All right. A lot of times when I go to students, when I go to universities, they're often wondering how do I connect with people? Who do I need to connect with? Like, how do I build my network? And even when you get to a professional level, right? Oftentimes people stay in their roles for years and years and years. And then when it's time to build their networks, they just don't know where to go on how to do things, right? And what happens is they connect with people that, you know, that they're familiar with, or they connect with people that they meet at networking events, which is, again, that's what you should be doing. That's fine. But as far as being intentional about being active about building your network, people often just fall short and they just stay comfortable inside their little bubbles. And so this is a great episode today on actually how to think about how to build your network and who you actually should be talking to to grow your network. In the meantime, you can find us on YouTube, you can find us on uh Instagram at Leadwith Confidence with JP Warren. Um, and I would you know, I encourage you, I ask you if you can, take 15 seconds, leave a comment, leave a review, share this. I just love kind of seeing how this impacts others around you. So let's kind of dive in today on how to think about how you can build your network effectively. All right, be a little be intentional about it, okay? So people often connect with people that they just kind of meet, right? They just stay kind of in their bubbles on who they should meet. And that's a very good foundation layer to have a network, right? A good foundation is kind of uh what sets you apart. Okay, so I feel like I kind of get ahead of myself. Let me slow down. So, number one, you gotta be thinking about who should you be talking to, who do you want to be talking to, and who need who you should need to be talking to. Okay, if that makes sense. Yeah. So who should you be talking to? So oftentimes this is that foundation layer that we're talking about. These are the, you know, whether you're a student, these could be the classmates you're around or people that you've had internships with before, that you met at the office, these are your coworkers, right? This is the foundation, okay. A lot of people stay here, which is fine. I love it. Again, I often think like it doesn't matter who you're connected with, but keep building your network. But the foundation layer, again, that's the one layer. That's the foundation layer, okay? That's who you should be connected with already, right? Now, the next layer is who do you want to be talking to? Okay, so this is the next layer up. So these are the decision makers. These are people maybe two layers above uh role on role-wise, the people that you should be talking to, right? So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna, since I talk to students, I'm gonna use the student avenue here. So if you're a student, your foundation level, that is the your classmates. That's the people that you previously had internships with before, right? That's maybe the people that you connected with walking through the office at your previous interns. That's your foundation level, right? And who should you want to be talking to? These are people in roles that you that you strive to be in, right? So this could be engineers in the in this role. These could be potential leaders in this role, or potential, you know, people that you actually want to kind of maybe work in their positions, for example, in one year, right? And so the th last layer is the one that not a lot of people shine uh a lot of light on, but this is people that you need to be talking to. These are people that you see maybe on LinkedIn that there's maybe some information you get. So if you're a student, these are the HR uh recruiters, these are the talent developers, these are the people that you probably need to be talking to to further your career. So whether you're trying to get information from them, whether they can be inspiring to you, or whether the decision makers at the company at this higher level, these are the people you got to focus on to. So the next time you open up LinkedIn and you're connecting with someone, or the next time you're actually thinking about who I need to connect with, start bucketing these different groups, right? Is it a foundational, uh, is it a foundational level of your network? Is it someone that you probably want to be connected to? These are other decision makers, other people, maybe your peers at other companies, same level, same responsibilities, same roles. It's often good to do that just to kind of like share knowledge, share information. And maybe if you're stuck on a challenge, like who you can kind of lean in on to once you start building out your network. And the last one is who you want to be connected to. These are the decision makers. These are the people with information that you can learn from. These are your this is your aspirational circle, the people that you want to be around to actually further your career, help make decisions or help get your um to help get your projects or your vision across the board. So again, think about how you think about who you're connected with and why you're connecting with them. Foundation, do you do should you be talking to them? Do you need to be talking to them or do you want to be talking to them? Okay. It's very, I mean, that's a very gray area, but it's just a way to think about are you leveling up, your are you leveling up your circles whenever you are networking? I often think that there is truth that we're the average of the five people we're surrounding ourselves with. So continue to try to build your network with more aspirational circles, circles that want to see you grow, want to see you thrive, circles that have been successful and they want to mentor and bring people under them and kind of have them succeed as well. All right. So that's what we have uh today. And uh to wrap it up, let me see if I have any other notes. So again, the audit is most people are very heavy on the should. They're kind of light on the want, and they completely skip the need layer of their networks. All right. So identify one person this week that is in that need category, connect with them. And again, when you're connecting with them, lead with curiosity. Don't have a blanket uh copy-paste message that you're sending to everyone else. So that's what we have today on Lead with Confidence. And again, thank you for tuning in. Think about your networks as you're building it. Always try to build a more aspirational circle around you. I have found that whether times are tough, or whether you're succeeding at something, or whether you just have questions about whether it's a career path or maybe it's an idea, maybe it's, hey, how does this pitch sound? I'm about to go have a meeting, how's this sound? They will often challenge you and give you honest feedback and they want to see you succeed. So go out there, continue to build your network. I often say this don't build your network when you need your network. Build your network when you when you have the time, energy, and effort too. It's just like a garden, okay? You're not gonna plant a garden when you're starving, when you're famished, when you have no nutrients in you, right? That's a little bit too late in the game. Just like you're not gonna build your network when you lose your job because that's a little bit too late. Obviously, do that, but if you start doing it when you lose your job, it gets very transactional and it gets very desperate. You plant your garden when you have the time, energy, and effort. That way, whenever you do need those nutrients, those fruits and veggies are already popping and growing and ready for you to get some nourishment from. So thank you out there for tuning in to Lead with Confidence. Go out there, build your networks, have fun doing it. And again, these are skill sets. Skill sets can be learned, practiced, and mastered. Start building them today. And that's why you're here, and I appreciate your time. And we are that's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.