Growing up, I was a really shy kid. I was afraid to talk to people and put myself out there. Even with people who were relatives, if you weren’t part of my everyday life, I didn’t want to talk to you. As I grew older, my shyness went away and was replaced by a quiet reticence; a tendency to listen and not engage too much if not engaged with first. Looking back, I wonder how I ever made friends. I guess I was lucky enough to meet people who pulled me out of myself.

Now, working in the corporate world, I’ve had to learn that that tendency to stay quiet has implications on more than just my social life. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but getting ahead is not just about how hard you work or how good your work is; it’s definitely about who you know and who knows you. So you definitely have to build connections with people. In my job, I’ve had to adjust to the idea that I need to brag on myself and take every opportunity to let people know who I am, what I’m working on, why it’s important, and what I care about. Not only do I need to do all this, but I need to build relationships with these people, so that they actually remember and care about what I share with them.

So, I joined a black women’s mentorship circle at my job to help me build the skill of networking and relationship-building. It was great! I encourage everyone to join a mentorship circle if ever presented with the opportunity. For me, my circle gave me a space to speak candidly with other black women in tech about issues that we were facing, and collect strategies on how to deal with these issues. My circle leader was also amazing because she built a strong structure for the circle in which we all had homework assignments. Sometimes it was things like reach out to an old connection and have a thirty minute conversation with them, or ask someone for help. One of the more intimidating tasks that we had was to reach out to the upper leadership of our respective departments and get 15 minutes on their calendar. We were to go prepared with a topic we could discuss with our leader so that we could keep the conversation going.

I have to admit that I was uncomfortable with the prospect of having a one to one with my Senior VP. And it took three months from when I first reached out to set up the meeting to actually get time on their calendar that would stick and not get rescheduled, so the anticipation probably made it all loom larger in my mind than it actually was. When we finally did speak, what was supposed to be just a fifteen minute meeting ended up being an hour. We discussed my background, my interests, and some of my ideas for bringing more diverse talent to our group (a topic that I am passionate about). By the time the meeting ended, we even had a rough plan to implement some of my ideas. What I didn’t understand at the time is that by the end of that meeting I had also gained a sponsor.

A sponsor is someone that will go to bat for you; they’re the person that brings up your name when opportunities arise. My SVP had already heard my name prior to our meeting because my manager had marked me as a top performer on our team. But putting a face to the name, getting to know me, what I cared about and was working toward, that personalized my name on a list of names. In the following months, my SVP would recommend me to be a guest speaker at a tech outreach event, and select me to work on a secret initiative sponsored by a c-suite executive of the company. All this yielded from a simple networking assignment.

Gaining a sponsor has not been the only benefit of practicing my networking and relationship-building skills. By nurturing connections made with people who I have worked with directly in the past, I’ve had a number of opportunities for new roles come my way. And similarly, I’ve had a list of people who were top of my mind when our team was looking for new talent (relationships are a two-way street, you know). And I’ve met other people and gained new mentors from my existing network. The key really is to just make these activities (cultivating existing and creating new connections) a thing that you just do on the regular. That way when an opportunity arises, that relationship is already there.

For me, although I enjoy talking to and learning about people, it’s not a natural inclination to reach out to people and open up to them about what’s going on with me, or to pry about what’s going on with them. But I’ve found that most people appreciate the gesture of you reaching out; they enjoy catching up if they have the time, and people tend to like to talk about themselves. Don’t let a disinclination to do something so simple stop you from building connections that can end up being so important down the line.