Networking tips for introverts worked for Ben Albert once COVID led him to turn a hobby podcast into business. He calls the show a sales tool with no sales pitch, no sales call to action and no email capture. He says his 22-episode launch from November 2020 produced 2 clients and seeded a network now past 1,000 contacts.
How can introverted founders network without small talk?
Introverted founders can copy Ben Albert, a self-described introvert who skipped small talk by hosting recorded one-on-one podcast conversations. He says his business podcast launched with 22 episodes, one each weekday, starting in November 2020. Of those guests, 2 became clients, and their introductions started a network he now puts at over 1,000.
Ben Albert is the owner of Balbert Marketing and host of Real Business Connections, a business podcast network. After a COVID furlough from a sales executive role, he replaced that income within just over a year. He did it as a self-described introvert who says busy in-person events were never his zone of genius.
Host Vinay Koshy opened their episode with the same dread: a room of strangers, small talk and cold hotel coffee. Ben built his own venue instead, and his story shows which networking tips for introverts paid off for him. In his words, he “created a medium around these people”.
Our guide to 5 introvert qualities that build online audiences covers the content side.
Why a Podcast Beats Networking Events for Introverts
When COVID moved networking online, Ben Albert found that virtual conversations and podcasting suited him better than events ever had. He says he could still get better at events. The virtual world, social media and podcasting were more his zone of genius.
Ben puts it plainly: “the person in front of you comes first. The audience comes second.” “If they don’t like you, why would 50,000 other people like you?” he asks.
He calls himself very introverted, and too much external stimulus makes it hard for him to go deep. In a crowd, he can’t ask why-questions or let someone talk for minutes at a time.
Ben says podcasting gave him what crowds didn’t: room to ask why and let a guest talk at length. He also warns that preparation matters. A host who arrives unprepared, he says, asks questions that “may stink” and leaves the guest a little put off.
Ben says his guests fell into 2 kinds. Some had decades of experience and compressed it into an hour he could learn from. Others were local business owners he could serve, and he never pitched them on air.
Many of those guests didn’t become clients. Ben says they became friends, peers and referral partners instead. He credits that goodwill and the relationships behind it with generating income of its own.
Ben says the medium doesn’t have to be a podcast. It could be a blog or a live event. For Ben, the people that medium served were the Rochester, New York business owners he wanted to know.
Networking tips for introverts serve a large audience. Susan Cain’s TED talk puts introverts at a third to a half of the population. Ben Albert, host of Real Business Connections, says podcasting suited him better than events once COVID moved networking online. He says the format gives him room to ask why-questions and let a guest talk at length.
How a 22-Episode Launch Seeded 1,000 Named Contacts
Ben Albert’s first paying client came from content with no sales intent at all. In 2016 he started a music show in Rochester, New York, as a hobby alongside his corporate job.
He ran it to amplify the local music scene. He calls it a cost centre that never earned him much income.
Yet the show ranked on Google for podcasting in his area, he says. A charter school found it there and hired him to teach podcasting to its students.
Ben puts the hire down to search: he says he ranked high for podcasting in the area. That contract gave him baseline income during a stalled job search.
After the furlough, he turned the hobby into a business channel. He started Rochester Business Connections because, in his words, he wanted more business connections.
Ben says he launched it with 22 episodes, one every weekday, starting in November 2020. Each guest was a local business leader. Of those 22 guests, 2 became clients.
Ben calls those 22 guests the base of a family tree o