What Nobody Tells You About Networking —and the Conversation That Changes It

For the professionals who've tried networking, decided it's not for them — and haven't quite let go of the feeling that they're missing something.

She Almost Didn't Come

A while back, a woman came to one of my events — let's call her “Vivienne”. She'd been in business for herself for a few years, was good at what she did, and had been told repeatedly that she needed to "get out there and network."

She hated the idea. She'd tried it. She'd stood in rooms holding a glass she didn't want, talked to people she'd never see again, handed over cards that went nowhere. It felt false. It felt like a performance she wasn't sure how to give. And she'd decided it just wasn't for her.

She came to my event because a friend recommended it to her. Not because she was excited. She told me later she'd nearly talked herself out of it three times on the drive over.

By the end of the evening, she'd had one conversation that genuinely surprised her. Not a transaction. Not an elevator pitch. A real exchange — where she said something honest about a challenge she was navigating, and the person across from her said: "I've been thinking about exactly the same thing."

She came back the following month. And the month after that.

What changed wasn't her personality. She didn't suddenly become someone who loves small talk. What changed was that she experienced what a better conversation actually feels like — and realised that's what she'd been missing all along.

Most people don't hate networking. They hate the version of it they've been shown. There is another way.

Let's Rethink What Networking Actually Is

Networking gets a bad name because of how we've been taught to do it. Cards. Pitches. LinkedIn requests from people you met for four minutes. A queueing system for mutual utility, dressed up as connection.

But here's what I know. Networking — real networking — is simply how we find the support, the knowledge, and the people we need. In life, not just in business. We are all part of many networks. The school run. The local community. Our professional world. The team we are part of in an organisation. We do it constantly. We just don't always call it that.

When we strip away the performance and the pressure we associate with it, what's left is this: genuine curiosity about another person and a space to learn from different experiences, perspactives and a life outside of our own. What matters to them? What are they trying to figure out? What are they working on?

When you ask those questions — and actually listen to the answers — something shifts. You stop being a networker. You become a person. And people remember people.

The most meaningful professional relationships don't begin with a pitch. They begin with a question — and the patience to really hear the answer.

Three Levels of Conversation — and Why Most People Stay at the Surface

I draw on the work of the late Judith Glaser, whose research on Conversational Intelligence shaped much of how I think about this. Glaser identified that conversations happen at three broad levels. And most of us, in professional settings, barely move beyond the first.

At the surface, we trade information. Facts, updates, pleasantries. Safe and necessary — but limited.

Go a level deeper and we move into curiosity: asking questions, exploring perspectives, sitting with someone else's thinking. This is where trust starts to build. Because you're signalling genuine interest, not just going through the motions.

The deepest level is collaborative discovery. Two people no longer talking at each other — but thinking together. Where the conversation itself creates something that neither person would have arrived at alone. This is where real opportunity lives.

Most professional conversations never leave the surface. Not because the people involved aren't capable of going deeper. But because nobody takes the first step.

That first step is almost always a better question.

Surface conversation creates contacts. Connection conversation creates trust. Collaborative conversation creates opportunity. The depth you go to is almost always a choice.

What Better Questions Actually Look Like

People often ask me what this looks like in practice. So here are a few I come back to that are part of my Conversations Count Game — not as a script, but as a starting point.

Instead of "What do you do?" — try "What are you working on right now that you're most excited about?"

Instead of "How's business?" — try "What's the most interesting thing you've learned lately?"

Instead of "We should catch up" — try "I'd love to understand more about what you're building. Could we find thirty minutes to talk properly?"

None of these are magic. What they have in common is intention. They signal that you're not just filling space. You're genuinely interested. And people can feel the difference.

I also believe in preparation. Before any event or meeting, I ask myself: who is likely to be in the room, and what do I genuinely want to understand about them? That question — asked honestly — changes how you show up.

Just recently, I had a meeting with a supplier and had briefly explained that I had moved into more of a focus on speaking, 1:1 mentoring and curating smaller dinner opportunities, rather than monthly events, and was quite disappointed that he had not invested any time in looking at my LinkedIn or my website prior to our meeting to understand the evolution and prepare questions on what I needed.

Confidence in conversation rarely comes from knowing the right answers. It comes from knowing the right questions — and having the courage to ask them.

The Follow-Up — the Part Most People Skip

Here's something I say often, because it's true: the value isn't usually in the room. It's in what happens after.

Most people walk away from a good conversation, feel good about it for a day or two — and then do nothing. Life gets busy. The moment passes. And something that could have become a real connection quietly disappears.

Following up isn't a sales move. It's a human one. It says: that conversation mattered to me, and so do you.

It doesn't need to be complicated. A message that references something specific — an idea they shared, a challenge they mentioned, an article that made you think of them — is worth far more than a generic "great to meet you."

One message. One genuine reference. That's often all it takes to move a contact into a connection, and a connection into something that actually matters.

The follow-up is where most opportunities are lost — and where the simplest investment pays the highest return.

Creating the Conditions for Connection

One thing I've learned from more than a decade of facilitating professional communities and curated events: connection doesn't happen by accident. It happens because someone created the conditions for it.

That's true at an event level — and it's true for each of us personally.

If you want better conversations, you can't just hope they happen. Choose the right rooms. Go alone rather than sit withthe one you already know. Get curious, ask one real question and then listen loudly and build on that response, before you reach for your phone. Leave space for something unexpected to come up.

And if you're the one running events or facilitating groups — think carefully about how you open the room. A well-chosen prompt. A thoughtful introduction. A single question posed to the table. These small acts of design create the conditions for conversations people remember long after the evening is over.

That's the part of my work I find endlessly fascinating. Not the logistics of getting people in a room. The art of making it genuinely worth their while to be there.

The right conversation, in the right conditions, between the right people — that's where hidden opportunities live. And it's rarely accidental.

If Something Here Resonated

If you're ready to experience what a better conversation actually feels like — not just read about it — I have two opportunities coming up.

The first is an online session later this month where we do exactly this work together: the questions, the levels, the practice of showing up differently. Small group, one hour, genuinely useful.

The second is a Catalyst Dinner in June — a curated evening where the conversation itself is the point. A small group of people who've said yes to going deeper.

Both are at kerryn-powell.com.au

If something in this blog resonated — that might be your sign.