Thursday, February 13, 2025

How networking can accelerate success! 

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Many leaders and entrepreneurs underestimate networking and view mentoring as a nice-to-have, but in reality, both are essential tools for long-term success. Archana’s journey—from being a first-generation lawyer to co-founding and scaling VERTICES PARTNERS—was built on the strength of relationships, trust and shared knowledge with like-minded people. True networking goes beyond business card exchanges, and true mentoring is more than feel-good advice. Both are about strategic value creation. Networking must be seen as a sustainable investment where confidence and integrity are built over time.
Identifying key stakeholders in your industry and beyond and nurturing relationships proactively—even before you need them—can be game-changing. In her early days, she made it a point to engage deeply with clients, founders and senior leaders—not just for work-related discussions but to understand their long-term vision. These genuine relationships proved invaluable when launching the company, as many of my early clients and referrals came from this trusted network. To build meaningful connections, it is also valuable to attend industry-specific and cross-industry events with a clear objective. Follow up consistently with value-driven interactions, such as sharing insights, offering help, or making introductions. Keep a personal tracker wherein you share greetings, engage in a timely manner, and share potential synergy to nurture a lasting relationship.
Once you choose the right mentor, more than motivating you, they help you navigate your cognitive limitations, enhance your reach to a like-minded fraternity, and protect you from costly hurdles. Rather than looking for basic business coaching, look for mentors who help you wade through similar experiences from the past you are currently facing. She was able to pave her path from an organised legal environment to entrepreneurship through invaluable insights from mentors who had built businesses from scratch. When the time came to pay it forward, she embraced the role of a mentor, guiding the young, rising entrepreneurs—mostly women—through strategic business growth advice, passing on valuable lessons, connecting networks, building platforms and preparing them with the skills that they required, navigating high-pressure moments and transitioning them to new horizons in their business undertakings confidently.
More than merely seeking mentorship on broader lines, request guidance on a particular challenge. Leverage structured mentorship platforms like industry councils, accelerators, or invite-only business networks. As you grow, become a mentor yourself—teaching is a powerful way to refine your knowledge. The best ideas often come from outside your immediate industry. Expanding your network beyond your sector gives you a competitive advantage. She didn’t limit her network to legal professionals; rather, she connected with entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders from various industries. This cross-sectoral approach gave her fresh insights on brand-building and audience engagement, which she applied back to her business.To benefit from cross-industry networking, join diverse industry forums, startup incubators, or global business organisations. For her, joining Asia’s one of the largest Chambers of Commerce for Women and eventually becoming its chairperson proved invaluable, offering her opportunities to learn, give back and build meaningful connections.
Have regular conversations with people in fields unrelated to yours—creativity often sparks in unexpected places. Study how other industries solve problems and see if similar solutions can apply to your field.The most successful relationships are built on mutual value exchange rather than one-sided requests. You will be remembered when you help someone with their business-related hurdle by being a source to add value to help them overcome their hurdle.Throughout her career, she has ensured that she provide value first, be it for ice-breaking introductions, sharing legal insights, or simply being a sounding board. This approach has helped me bolster her relationships and organically brought many opportunities my way.Disengaging from transactional and taking up a relational networking mindset is the key.Making it a habit to help the fraternity grow collectively by helping know peers is certainly helpful to us in the long run too. Follow up and nurture relationships—people appreciate when you check in with genuine interest.
A successful mentorship program should be structured, with clear goals, accountability and feedback loops. Organisations should create internal mentorship frameworks to cultivate leadership from within.At the company, they ensure young lawyers don’t just work on transactions but understand client strategy, business implications, and negotiation psychology. This hands-on mentorship approach accelerates their growth far beyond traditional training methods. Even in her role as a leader with certain Chambers of Commerce, she applied the same philosophy for the members and mentees.If you’re a senior leader, implement mentorship programs within your company, ensuring mentees have clear milestones. As a mentee, set defined objectives with your mentor to track progress effectively. Use digital tools (like Notion, Trello, or Google Docs) to document key mentorship insights for reference.The real power of networking and mentoring is in its compounding effect—every relationship nurtured today builds a foundation for future success. Leaders who consistently invest in relationships and mentorship create an ecosystem where opportunities flow effortlessly.
Many of her firm’s breakthroughs came from long-standing relationships—clients, partners and referrals that grew organically over time.To maximise the compound effect, track your key relationships and periodically revisit them to stay connected. Take the long view—business success is rarely about one big break but about the cumulative effect of many well-nurtured relationships. Pay it forward—mentorship and networking thrive when leaders continue the cycle of support and knowledge-sharing.To sum it up, to be successful, one needs to be fortified with the shared strength of the networks and mentors that they build with time. Irrespective of whether one is a seasoned leader or a novice entrepreneur, establishing honest relationships and organized mentorship will govern your long-term success.
As she reflects on her journey—from building a legal practice to engaging with entrepreneurs and thought leaders and leading a chapter of an established chamber of commerce for women—she sees one constant: the right relationships open the right doors.

(The author, Archana Khosla Burman, is an entrepreneur, Founding Partner – VERTICES PARTNERS, FICCI FLO National Head – Collaborations, Partnerships and Associations.)

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