Powerful Women Rising - A Business Podcast for Female Entrepreneurs

Help! I'm Networking My Butt Off and Getting Nothing Back

• Melissa Snow - Powerful Women Rising, LLC • Episode 99

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Feeling Like Networking Is One-Sided? Here’s What to Do.

You’re showing up, building relationships, making introductions, sharing opportunities—so why does it feel like no one is doing the same for you? 

It’s frustrating, it’s discouraging, and it might even have you questioning if networking is worth the effort.

In this episode, we’re tackling the uncomfortable reality of one-sided networking and shifting the way you think about relationship-building in business. 

Listen in to learn:

✅ How keeping score sabotages your connections
✅ What to do when you feel like you're giving more than you're getting 
✅ How to ensure your networking efforts work - even when you can't see the results yet.

Networking isn’t about quick wins—it’s about planting seeds that grow into real opportunities. 

So if you’re feeling stuck, let’s talk about what’s actually happening beneath the surface and how to keep building connections in a way that feels good and supports your business for the long haul.

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Connect with Me, Your Host Melissa Snow!

Melissa Snow is a Business Relationship Strategist dedicated to empowering women in entrepreneurship. She founded the Powerful Women Rising Community, which provides female business owners with essential support and resources for business growth. Melissa's other mission is to revolutionize networking, promoting authenticity and genuine connections over sleazy sales tactics. She lives in Colorado Springs with her two dogs, three cats, and any number of foster kittens. She loves iced coffee, true crime, Taylor Swift, and buying books she’ll never read.

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Speaker 1:

Thank you. If you've been networking for a while, do you ever feel like you are out there doing all the things showing up, supporting people, making introductions, sharing opportunities and then you look around and think, uh, hello, why am I not getting any love back? If that's ever happened to you, stick around, because today we're talking about what to do when networking starts to feel a little one-sided. If you're new here, welcome. I'm Melissa Snow, and this is the Powerful Women Rising podcast, a podcast for female entrepreneurs who want to build real relationships in business without the awkward sleazy. Let me just pitch you my thing vibes. I am a business coach and a networking expert who teaches women how to network like actual humans, not like salesy weirdos or desperate robots, and today we're diving into why networking does work, even when it doesn't feel like it.

Speaker 1:

Now I want you to know that this podcast episode is somewhat autobiographical. I often come up with the ideas for the topics that I want to talk about on my solo episodes, either from what I'm experiencing in my own life or from what I'm hearing from the members of the Powerful Women Rising community, which, by the way, is an online community for female entrepreneurs. It's basically the best thing ever. It is networking, masterminding, co-working, learning to be better at networking and having fun doing it. And if you haven't checked it out yet, definitely click the link in the show notes. Anyway, this topic comes from my own current frustration and I'm sharing it, not because I want you to feel bad for me or go do something for me to show me that you're an important part of my network, because if you keep listening, you'll see that is not the point. But sometimes it feels like I am networking in a void. Sometimes it feels like I am providing value, I'm sharing opportunities, I'm forwarding emails, I'm saying, hey, listen to this podcast episode. I'm saying, hey, you should totally meet so-and-so, she'd be a perfect fit for you and feeling like I'm not really getting a lot back. So if you have ever felt like that, I want to just acknowledge that frustration is real. I understand the feelings and I'm hopeful that this episode is going to help you shift your perspective and see some of the benefits that you might not be seeing of continuing on with your networking efforts and how you can make some adjustments that will help your efforts pay off over time. So the first thing I want to talk about is a reminder that real relationships are not transactional and sometimes, when we get to this point of feeling like, does networking even work, it's because we've shifted our focus to the transactions. We've started keeping score, expecting a return, feeling entitled to a referral because we gave one, and that doesn't make you a bad person, that's totally normal. But I want to remind you that we are about building real, authentic connections. We're about building real relationships that continue on over time and organically result in business growth. So I want to remind you that networking is about building trust and building a community. It's not a tit for tat exchange. Also, where did that phrase come from? I might have to go down an ADHD rabbit hole and Google it, because tit for tat is basically one of the worst phrases and I just used it. So I want to share an example of how not to network and how a scarcity mindset can hurt relationships.

Speaker 1:

I connected with a woman years and years ago when I first moved here and started networking, and she was a realtor and was very connected in the community. Everybody knew her. She runs a local Facebook group. That's just a community group has nothing to do really with her business and there's lots of members in it and you know, she's just, she's pretty well known and I really liked her. I liked her energy, she was very spunky and, um, I thought she liked me and we haven't ever been like hangout friends. But we have stayed in touch on social media. We comment on each other's posts, blah, blah, blah. So I had sent her a message asking her hey, I've got this free event coming up. Would it be okay if I shared it in your community group? And her response back to me was basically can you remind me of the last time you sent me a referral and it was so off-putting and so not how I want to do business that I was over it. At that point I didn't need to post the event in her group. But I'm sharing this story with you because that is what happens when we start to think of these relationships as more transactional, when we start to keep score of like gosh I've done a lot for Janice recently and I can't remember the last time that Janice has done something for me it turns us into somebody that we don't really want to be and it also turns us into somebody that other people don't really want to continue creating connections with.

Speaker 1:

So the best analogy I can give you is to think of networking as planting seeds, not trading crops. So you are going around all of these times that you're providing value to people, whether that's a referral, whether it is sharing a resource, whether it is sharing an opportunity. Every time you're providing value, you're planting seeds, and some seeds take longer than others to grow, but eventually most of them will grow and that is going to sustain your business a lot more than if you just had a certain number of crops to trade for a certain number of crops, and now you have no more crops, so you're not valuable to the other person anymore. I don't know if that was a weird analogy or if it worked, but it seemed like it worked in my head. Okay, the other thing I want to remind you of is that your network might be doing invisible work for you. You might think that nobody is doing anything to help you, that nobody is thinking about you, providing value to you, referring you, but just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. And, as I mentioned in the planting seeds analogy, just because it's not happening right, this second doesn't mean it's not going to happen. There are likely people who are mentioning you in rooms that you're not in, even if you don't hear about it, and sometimes those referrals or opportunities take months or years to surface, your name might already be circulating in ways that you don't realize. This happened to me once with somebody that I had met years ago, with no real contact since then, and I didn't even think she really remembered who I was. And then I met somebody at a networking group and they were like oh, I know you So-and-so told me about you and I was just like oh, wow, that's awesome, right. So you don't always know what's happening and you don't always know when it's going to turn into something for you.

Speaker 1:

The next thing I want to talk about is teaching people how to network with you. So my guess is, when you first started networking, when you first started your business and you were meeting people and making connections and building relationships, you didn't really have a lot of strategy behind it. You didn't really know what you were doing For me. I knew that I was supposed to network when I started my business, but I didn't really know why. I just knew I needed to meet people and maybe they would want to buy my thing. Like that was my whole networking strategy.

Speaker 1:

So, while that is true for us. It is likely true for everyone else as well, and so there's likely a lot of people who want to be helpful to you. They want to be a valuable part of your network, but they don't really know how. Either they don't even think about providing value to you in ways other than referrals or they don't really understand how to refer you. Maybe they don't know what kind of opportunities you're looking for right now. Maybe they are not clear on who your ideal client is or how to make that referral happen.

Speaker 1:

So I recently had a one-on-one strategy session with a member of the Powerful Women Rising community and I helped her get crystal clear on how to help other people help her. We needed to figure out what are the things that other people need to be listening for in conversations that will trigger them to think I need to refer this person to so-and-so or so-and-so needs to talk to this person. If someone says a certain phrase, a certain keyword, if you have a friend who always complains about a certain thing, that's the person I want to talk to, right, or maybe right now it is. I'm really looking for people who run groups, communities, online summits, that are looking for speakers or participants right, and sometimes, often, what you're looking for is going to change, and so it's important that you have a way to communicate that to the people who are in your network so that they know specifically what you are looking for and how to introduce you in a non-salesy way.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to refer you. I was working with another member of the Powerful Women Rising community on a handout that she is going to give to medical providers that she partners with because she's a health and wellness coach, and we created this pamphlet or this brochure whatever you want to call it so that she can give it to these medical providers as a simple way for them to refer people to her. They don't have to remember oh, I think she does that. Oh, I think she does that. Oh well, I don't know if she helps people with that, it's all right there on the paper. All they have to do is be able to identify the person that could be helped by her services and give them the paper. That's it. So the easier you make it for people to refer you or to provide value to you in some other way, the more likely it is that they are going to do it.

Speaker 1:

I also noticed recently. I have a friend who also owns a business and she has been posting maybe once a month or once every other month on different social media channels asking for connections, for speaking opportunities, very specifically in her post. This is what my expertise is. If you know people who would benefit from having a speaker on this topic, here's how you can connect me right. So tell people more than once what it is that you're looking for, how they can help you, ways that they can provide value for you and make it as easy for them as possible, and I think you are going to start getting better results. Also, remember there was a day that you weren't that amazing at networking either. So people need guidance and they need your grace. I like to always assume the best intentions of people.

Speaker 1:

I also want to remind you that networking is a long game. This is one of the reasons that, when I started this business, there were several quote unquote experts who told me it was not going to work and it was not going to sell, because people, especially business owners, especially those who aren't making consistent income, want a quick win. Right, we want the thing that says I'll teach you how to make six figures in 90 minutes. Who doesn't want to make six figures in 90 minutes? And then there's me. I'm like networking takes a long time, but it pays off, trust me. Let's just do it for some years and you'll find out right. That is not sexy. That is likely not going to sell. Good thing, I talk about it in a way that is not that sad. But it is important to remember that the long game pays off. This is why I say networking is one of the most sustainable business strategies that there is, because it is always compounding over time as long as you keep doing it.

Speaker 1:

I know that it's exhausting when it feels one-sided, but stopping is not the solution. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. It's no longer something that you track or something that you resent. For me, providing value to other people has become second nature. I don't often even think about it when I'm doing it. I just naturally have conversations, thinking who do I need to connect this person to? Or I listen to a podcast or read a blog post and I just automatically think who could benefit from hearing this and I take two seconds to forward it on. So when you reach the point where providing value is second nature, it becomes much easier and more powerful, because instead of thinking who's doing something for me, you just keep thinking how can I keep being a valuable connector? You get to feel that joy without any attachment to the outcome, and I guarantee you that in the long run, it does pay off for your business.

Speaker 1:

Now, the last thing I want to add, as a little asterisk disclaimer before we wrap up, is that sometimes you do have to reevaluate your networking strategy. You do have to ask yourself sometimes am I networking in the right places? Am I putting effort into the right relationships? Am I surrounding myself with the right people, or am I in groups that don't align with my values? Does it feel like the communities that I'm in are more transactional and self-serving? Am I giving to people who clearly don't reciprocate and never will? Am I networking in places where no one understands the value of what I do, no matter how many different ways I try to explain it? If so, it might be time to shift your efforts, and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between when you need to make some changes and when you need to just stick it out and trust that it's gonna pay off in the long run.

Speaker 1:

If you haven't listened to episode 89 of the Powerful Wind Rising podcast or maybe you haven't listened to it recently I would definitely check it out. That is an episode I recorded at the end of 2024 about reevaluating your networking strategy for the year, and it's important that we take time periodically to evaluate what we're doing in the networking world to make sure that we are putting our time and energy in the right places. So a few reminders before we wrap up. Networking does work. It just doesn't always work on your timeline or in the ways that you expect.

Speaker 1:

It's okay to feel frustrated and defeated sometimes. I don't know any entrepreneur who doesn't feel frustrated and defeated sometimes. Just keep coming back to the person that you want to be, the business that you want to have, the impact that you want to create and the life that you want to live. When you focus on those things, you will see that networking, that creating authentic connections and real relationships, is how you want to build your business. You, I know, are a heart-centered entrepreneur. You don't want to build a business in a transactional way and if you try, it's not going to feel good to you, so stick with it.

Speaker 1:

Remember that people might be doing work for you that you can't see, and just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. Also, remember that sometimes referrals and opportunities take months or years to surface, and that you have to teach people the best way to support you as part of your network. Be vocal about what you need. Sometimes people don't know unless you tell them. So I have two little homework assignments for you today. One I want you to ask yourself who in your network might already be doing things for you without you even realizing. And the second thing I want you to do is to reach out to someone in your network today and ask how can I support you right now without expecting anything return? If you continue to do those two things consistently, you will see that networking works and that it feels good.

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Melissa Snow

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