4 easy networking steps you can take right now

LinkedIn and sweaty handshakes not required.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I hate networking. I hate the word itself, and the way it connotes LinkedIn friend requests and shaking hands at cocktail parties. I hate it because I have social anxiety and would rather spend my emotional energy with close friends, and I hate that it carves into the time I’d otherwise use for my actual work.

But the nature of freelancing is that we’re responsible for forging our own business connections. We have no employer to find and foster those connections for us; in fact, we cannot make money unless we go out of our way to find the people who are willing to pay us. Rarely does paid work fall in anyone’s lap.

Both of these things can be true at once. I can hate networking and still begrudgingly do it because it’s an essential stanchion for my freelance career. I can also find easy ways to spread the word about my work without expelling a ton of social energy. These, my freelancing friends, are the techniques (if you can call them that) I want to share with you today.