My Biggest Networking “Hack”

Your prowess with human interaction is at least as valuable as your technical skill, depth of subject knowledge, and years spent accumulating it.

Read that again.

No, that’s not another way of saying “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” – I think that phrase is entirely false. It implies that if you have a giant network but no knowledge, you’ll be fine. In audio, that’s definitely not true.

It is important – and every week my mind is blown that people seem incapable of this – that you know how to strike up a polite introductory conversation with someone, be interested in them, and be interested in helping them.

But I was chatting with a fine gentlemen over email last week, and something he said hit me while I was reflecting on the conversation. The comment went something like:

“I’ll look up <a friend of mine I said he should reach out to>. What should I say to him, though?”

My mildly sarcastic response was “tell him he has fantastic hair” (he does – and I was also more helpful than this).

In the moment of writing that, I was thinking “oh, this again – okay, I’ll tell him how to say hi to a stranger”. Today I realize that I need to remind you –

Friends, talking to strangers is part of your job.

Honestly – I’ve never met an audio professional who didn’t have to build relationships with peers and clients outside of sending in a resume (you heartless fiends call this “networking”). I’m serious – I’ve worked in a pile of audio-related industries – and not one person has told me –

“Well, you know, I just got really good at middleware and game engines from doing demos on my own at home. I made a 1 minute demo reel and a resume with my Masters work, applied to a job, and got it!”

Okay so at first “Masters work” was going to be “Panera and Taco Bell work” – but my point is that you can have a lot of educational experience or none at all – you’re killing your chances of getting work if you have no ability to talk to people.

“But Adam, I’m an introvert! I don’t like people! I don’t know how to do this! I’m afraid! I’m panicked! People are exhausting! I don’t know what to say! It’s awkward!”

Okay, so first – people are humans – not monster demons from under the bed who instantly judge you as horrible at the first awkward word you say.

Second – most game audio people are as awkward as you. I was.

Third – if you tell yourself you can’t talk to people, you’re literally lying to yourself. I mean that literally, not figuratively. You have at least 1 friend you’ve made in your life. If you’ve ever had a D&D group (I haven’t, but it’s a thing among a lot of not-me-game people), you’re immediately disqualified because you’re friendly with enough people to sit around a table for hours and not run screaming.

So the real issue is probably two things:

You have no practice
You have no script, therefore you don’t practice

Wait what – a script?!? Adam, you use a script to talk to people?! How heartless and unreal of you!

Well yes, I do – but so do you.

When someone says thank you when you open a door for them – with 95% accuracy I can tell you that you reply with the same response 95% of the time. Sometimes you’ll change it up. But, for example, apparently my entire generation and the youths just below me say “no problem!” almost always.

My “script” is about as scripted as that response – you hypocrite.

(That’s a joke)

“Okay Adam, so what do you say?! I need a script!!”

Here’s the rub – it doesn’t matter what you say. I actually gave away the secret earlier.

I sarcastically told the gentleman who emailed me to tell my friend he’s got fantastic hair. Yes, it was a mildly “witty” remark – but my point was that the gentleman could just as easily compliment my friend’s shoes.

The exact words don’t matter, the connection matters.

If you scroll up to the top of this, I said –

Be interested in them, and be interested in helping them.

That’s literally the secret. I gave it away in the third paragraph and you’re still reading and looking for my magic words that solve your problems. That should tell you how much you’re over complicating things for yourself.

When you go talk to someone new – it doesn’t matter what you find fascinating about them (their beard, hair, facial hair, makeup, shoes, shirt, jacket, socks, laugh, smile, a story about them, their reputation), you just need to find something.

The gentleman I emailed can quite literally go up to my friend – with sincerity – and say “Hi! So nice to meet you! My god you have majestic hair! I’m not sure if you get this regularly, and if this is incredibly awkward I apologize but I’m actually being sincere when I ask – is it just naturally that way?”

You can literally walk up to someone new and say “Hi, my name is <name> – I just have to tell you that I think your jacket is super rad. Where did you buy it?!”

Then you play a game – how long can you stay interested and ask questions until they turn the table on you.

Every time I’ve ever done this – I’ve made a friend.

You can too. I believe in you, because I’m not a super special “networking” genius.

I cover this in further depth and more strategies/ideas in my book Quit Aspiring. If you’re dying to get a job in game audio and you’re panicked because you don’t know where to start, or you feel like you’re wasting time, or you’re not sure what’s important and what to attack first – I wrote it for you.

If you enjoyed this, if you feel more empowered and enthusiastic now – go check the book out. You’ll be on your way to your heart’s desire in no time.