I've been networking all wrong
why I'm changing my strategy
What’s your opinion on networking? 🤝 Are you strategic about the kinds of events you attend? I’d really love your thoughts on this and my transatlantic approach once you finished reading.
Realising how much I enjoy networking a few years into my freelance career came as something of a surprise considering I absolutely hated it during my last full-time job. Though maybe it’s not so strange. Because the difference between then and now is that I like the job, the role, the career I network about. Most days, I love it. I couldn’t say the same back then.
Back then, the idea of walking into a room of strangers and “selling” myself was so unappealing, I did whatever I could to avoid it. Now, working mostly alone with only my gorgeous corgi for company, I relish the opportunity to meet up with other freelancers, creatives, and business owners. I seek out networking groups filled with like-minded people. I have no problem walking into a room of strangers and stepping into a group of people already engrossed in conversation to introduce myself.
Only, this is the problem. This is where I’ve been going wrong.
Specifically, this bit: “I relish the opportunity to meet up with other freelancers, creatives, and business owners.”
Networking with my competition: the good and the bad
There are lots of reasons why networking with fellow freelancers and marketers is a wonderful, worthwhile endeavour — the most important one being that no-one else in my immediate friendship group* is self-employed. I need to actively seek out other people who get it, otherwise it would just be me and Google/Claude trying to figure out how to price myself and what to write back to that thorny client email and how to get through the quiet weeks/months without having a complete meltdown.
But mostly networking with people like me — those serving similar clients, offering a similar thing (in that we both offer a done-for-you service), at a similar stage of self-employment — isn’t the key to more business. Not unless I get lucky.
*I now have one gorgeous close friend who is self-employed, but she only came into my life thanks to a networking event for female business owners!
But can’t service providers recommend one another?
Theoretically, yes. As a social media manager, I can recommend my fabulous freelance friends and the service providers I meet networking who offer branding, copywriting, messaging strategy, web design, video editing, and photography. I do this, regularly, and I know they do the same for me.
However, the problem is that most of us are working for small businesses with limited marketing budgets. If a business has recently hired one of us — a web designer, let’s say, to overhaul their website and maybe even a copywriter, too, to rewrite everything — it’s highly unlikely they can also afford to hire a social media manager. At least not right away.
Networking with other freelancers and service providers is a really, really long game for this reason. Case in point: I met a wonderful freelance copywriter for coffee off the back of a networking event in early 2021. We stayed in sporadic contact, messaging each other off and on over the years until — out of the blue, in October 2025 — I received an enquiry from the same copywriter who is now Head of Comms at UN Women UK. Almost five years after we first met, this lovely connection turned into a six-month gig managing UNWUK’s social channels.
See what I mean? It is worthwhile, but my goodness is it a long game.
The kind of networking I’m going to do more of
I’m not going to stop networking with other female freelancers. When the opportunity arises, I’ll take it. But I am going to be more strategic about the networking events I actively seek out.
I follow a brilliant British illustrator and creative agency owner on LinkedIn called Ben Wild. He opened my eyes to the potential of industry-specific remote networking events in the US — specifically San Francisco and New York — as an excellent way to get in front of businesses with budget to spend. And that’s really important. British budgets and therefore freelancer pay in this country is — compared to the US — tiny. Often depressingly so.
So rather than trying to conjure up well-paid freelance jobs here, I’m going to look further afield to the US to see if I have any luck there. I’ve already started researching virtual networking opportunities and it’s definitely going to take some digging. As per Ben’s advice, the key is to get really specific. So, for example, if you want more clients in the food industry, seek out remote networking events for the food industry in NY and SF. It’s niche and they won’t always pop up immediately from a first Google, but they are there. Ben and his US clients are testament to that.
So, what do you think of this approach? Is it something you might try? Something you have tried?
I’d love your thoughts.
— Bella xo
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