I work in a male dominated industry, and I’ve found that shared interests get me past the surface level networking conversation much faster than talking strictly business.
For me, that’s watches, bourbon, shooting, tracking sports cars, and comedy. Those are things I genuinely enjoy and know enough about to have a real conversation. I’m not just politely waiting for my turn to talk about real estate.
Now we have a reason to talk again that isn’t “Do you have a deal for me?”
That doesn’t mean pretending to like someone’s hobbies. Ask what they do outside of work. Find something you actually have in common. Better yet, go do it together.
I’m fascinated by the science of bonding, especially research on vasopressin. We spend so much time talking about how to network and so little thinking about how people actually connect.
I’d rather leave with two people I genuinely want to see again than 30 business cards.
Something I’m trying to learn before Flex Space Connect: when operators, brokers, lenders + vendors are in the same room, what makes the convo actually useful instead of surface-level? Asking from the Sugar Land networking side 🙂