Networking for Real Relationships
October 23, 2025
What if we started networking to build REAL relationships, not just transactional connections…
It's your weekly dose of clarity and insight on all things tech & business from Dream in Digital! Each week, I'm here to share my thoughts to help you make the most of today's technology and build a business that genuinely supports the life you want to live.
This Week’s Core Focus:
What Really is Networking?
At its core, “Networking is the process of building and maintaining professional relationships with others to exchange information and ideas. It involves connecting with people, often those in your industry or with shared interests, to share knowledge, gain advice, find opportunities, and help others in return.” In the professional world and in my personal experience though, networking seems very transactional. It’s “simply a numbers game,” and “you got to just keep putting yourself out there.”
While I can’t deny any of this information, all of these things are kind of what make me cringe. In that case, what if we, in a minimalist and intentional fashion, flipped this on its head, and made networking more about genuine connection and defining who belongs in our essential circle? What if networking became about finding the few people who will help us truly build a life and business of purpose and joy? With this in mind, here are 3 Essential Takeaways for what I think better networking could look like:
Learn to Learn: It’s important to go into every networking interaction with the desire to learn. When your goal is to leave smarter or more informed than when you came in, this mindset can change everything! You stop worrying about selling yourself, and you start focusing on developing genuine connections to learn about others, their experiences, and what they (and others) really need.
Prioritize Quality Over Quantity: Even if you come away with handfuls of business cards from a networking event, the real question you should be asking yourself is, “did you really make an actual connection?” One way to know is if you are able to genuinely craft a specific follow-up message to each person you met. If not, maybe a little more listening and a bit less talking/selling is worth considering for next time.
Follow-Up As a Friend, Not a Sales Person: It can be easy to use your follow-up message as the chance to pitch your business, but unless you’ve met a few times before, it’s probably not the right time. Instead, simply acknowledge that it was great chatting, and if it doesn’t feel too soon, maybe set up a time to grab a coffee to talk more in the future.
Tech Tip of the Week:
The Digital Business Card
The Problem: Traditional paper business cards create physical clutter, are easily lost or forgotten, and lead to manual data entry that wastes your time.
The Solution: Use a digital business card that instantly adds your contact information to someone’s phone via a vCard QR Code.
Step 1: When someone asks you for your card, simply pull up your digital business card file on your phone.
Example:
My Dream in Digital, Digital Business Card...go ahead, Scan It!
Step 2: Have the other person pull out their phone to scan your QR Code.
Step 3: Tell them to email, text, or call you at that moment, so you now have their information.
Step 4: Get back to having a genuine conversation.
How This Helps: This quick, easy, and paperless way to connect allows you to make sure your information doesn't get lost in the shuffle with everyone else's business card, and it allows you to quickly connect with one another so you can get back to your valuable 1-on-1 human interaction.