5 Tips For Being A Relational Networker With Ginger Williams

Written By Olivia Bell

Ginger Williams, real estate agent, trusted advisor, and networking expert, has been in the business of connecting with people since she attended her first networking event after having been a stay at home mom for seven years outside of college. Since that first event, she has become one of the most well connected people in Jackson. For Ginger, the key to networking is creating meaningful connections with people right from the start, from your very first interaction with them. 

“What is the whole point of networking in general? I think it’s to create relationships,” she said.

So here are five of Ginger’s best tips to help you become a more relational networker.

Tip One: Have a wingman. 

At Ginger’s first networking event, she recalled walking in and immediately locking eyes with someone and walking across the room to her. 

“I said ‘I’ve never been to one of these.’ I was really open, vulnerable, and just honest.” 

Come to find out, she had never been to a networking event either and the two decided to walk around and meet people together. Since then, that is one of Ginger’s biggest tips. Grab a friend and stick together, it will make the process of meeting new people a lot less intimidating.

Tip Two: Find the quickest way you know someone. 

One great way to connect with people is to find out who you both know. 

“If this person knows who I know, I feel like I know who they are and I feel connected to them,” Ginger explained. 

With finding someone that the both of you know, which you can do by asking questions about where they are from, where they went to school, or what they do, you create a connection point. Name dropping and finding your common threads establishes rapport. 

However, if you cannot find a shared person, try to find a common history. The question “Where are you from?” can lead to all sorts of other questions where you can learn things about a person’s background and story. There is always a chance to create a connection over a shared experience.

Tip Three: Ask thoughtful questions.

After introducing yourself and asking the preliminary get-to-know-you questions, you should move on from “How’s the weather?” level of conversations and try to go a little deeper. 

“Ask heart questions, not fact questions,” Ginger said. “‘What do you do?’ is a fact finding question. Whereas ‘What do you love about what you do?’ is a heart question. It’s a quicker way to connect with people, to find out what it is that’s going on in their heart.”

Having a meaningful interaction with someone the first time you meet is vital to getting to know them more and building a true and genuine relationship, and it’s better to do this on the front end. As they say, first impressions really are everything. 

Be a thoughtful question-asker and especially be a good listener. Those two things will get you further than you may think. Some questions to ask might be: 

• What do you love about what you do? 

• Why did you decide to do that? 

• What type of person are you trying to connect with here?

Tip Four: Be consistent.

“The real point of networking is to be relational and create a deep connection,” Ginger said. “You can’t build meaningful relationships in 15 minutes.”

In order to really be an effective networker, you need to be consistent. Following up about things people have shared with you is essential to maintaining your relationships. You don’t want your interaction with someone at a networking event to be the only time they ever hear from you. 

“What’s the end of our relationship? Well hopefully it never ends,” Ginger said. 

If the goal of networking is to build relationships with people in your community, then it only makes sense that you should strive to do everything you can to keep those relationships alive so that when the time comes, people can be there to help you and you can be there to help others.

Tip Five: It’s okay to be light-hearted sometimes!

Sharing a joke every once and a while and not being too serious when the time calls for it can be helpful when you’re trying to break the ice and get to know someone. Sometimes, that bit of humor is exactly what the conversation needs to help both of you feel more comfortable and at ease.

“I think sharing laughter with people is a good way to connect.”

If there’s anything that you take away from this master list of networking tips, let it be that networking is all about putting yourself out there, staying curious, and being relational. 

Come and put these tips to practice at our next Spark event on Thursday, July 25 at 8am at theCO, where you will hear from Ginger and a group of panelists on how to plan ahead for your business and finish strong in the fourth quarter. You can sign up to register here.