Hate networking? So do I. Here's what 5,000 dinners taught me instead.

You don't build a network by going to networking events. You earn one. Here's how I built mine, starting with nobody.

Twenty years ago in New York, you could go to ten events a night. Stop here for thirty minutes, stop there for thirty minutes. Business cards, handshakes, a glass of wine, next.

The New York hello is "So, what do you do?" If the answer isn't up to par, people just move on to the next person. You can work a room of 300 like that all night. And it still feels like work, because you're ON. You're performing. You're trying to show your value and make two things fit together before the next person walks up.

New York is fast. It's not like London, where it takes years. It's not like China, where you can't do business until you've known someone for twenty years. New York is the city of one-night stands. Business happens real fast.

So that's not where Wonder Women came from.

It started with four friends

Sex and the City style, actually. Four of us, all in tech and venture, trying a different restaurant each month. It took about a month to line up four busy calendars.

We were successful, and we didn't want to talk about work after work. We talked about parties, kids, whatever your life is about. We laughed our asses off the whole dinner. Then we invited a couple more friends. Then a couple more. Fast forward twenty years and there are more than 20,000 women in over 30 cities, all built around one idea: I don't want to go to another networking event after work. I just want to hang with my friends.

You earn a network. Networking is just handshakes and business cards.

Our members say it better than I do. "Nobody likes networking," says Haley Boehning, a Wonder Women member in Columbus and New York. "Again, for the people in the back: Nobody. Likes. Networking. But everyone likes to make real genuine connections with other humans."

The ask is not the problem

I talk to a lot of women who are desperate for something. A job, a client, an investor. They lead with the want.

Did you say it? Did you ask for it? Yes, you did. Did you get it? No.

The words of the ask aren't what gets you the thing. Trust does. And trust takes a foundation you can't skip.

Be Santa Claus for a year

In my early twenties I switched industries and knew nobody in New York. So for one solid year I took every breakfast, lunch, dinner and drink I could get my hands on.

All I did was give. I remembered what everyone wanted, and I handed it to them, usually within the week. I paid for every coffee. I was everyone's genie in a bottle.

By the end of that year, I knew everyone, and everyone owed me a favor. Karma credits. I still have those relationships twenty years later. I've changed industries four or five times since, and it works the same way every time. Who I am stays the same. How I help people stays the same.

Get to the right table

I get invited to poker games with guys. Over the course of one game, they swap million-dollar deals at the table. And I thought, wow, this is how it's done.

Everyone is trying to learn how to pitch. You don't need a better pitch. You need to get to the right table and sit down and play. And they won't invite you if you're not fun.

Women bond differently. We do dinners and cake, mahjong and spa days, ladies' poker night. It's a female take on what guys have been doing for years. (Also: learn poker. I mean it.)

Funny is sticky

At every Wonder Women dinner, everyone stands up and introduces themselves: your name, what you do, and something Google doesn't know about you. Keep it to two minutes. If you see me spin my hand at my throat, wrap it up.

That intro isn't a party trick. It pulls you out of networking mode. Everyone walks in with their walls up, showing the resume version of themselves. I want the version your best friend knows. When someone tells a funny story about themselves, the walls come down, and the table finds the things they have in common besides work. You're a mom. You're an Olympian. You like to run. You all did the same stupid thing in Vegas.

I learned this the hard way. When I was a CEO studying for the Series 7, life was miserable, so I added a stand-up comedy class at Caroline's on top of it. For three months my homework was to write jokes every day. My brain was stuck in funny mode, and I kept performing after the class ended.

Here's what I learned. Being funny on a comedy stage is a very high bar. Being funny in a corporate setting? Very low bar. Add a little of it everywhere you go.

So skip "How's the weather?" and "What do you do?" Compliment her necklace. Tell her the weird true thing that happened to you this week.

Who will pick up the phone?

That's the whole test of a network. When COVID hit and nobody could get coffee anymore, the people who'd kept their heads down at their desks had no one to call. You need to be able to open your Rolodex and pull out numbers.

And fewer of us have those numbers to call. In 1990, 3% of Americans said they had no close friends. By 2021 it was 12% (Survey Center on American Life).

It matters even more now. With AI screening every application, if you don't know someone, you're not getting anything. The bot is going to kick you out. Who you know will always matter.

It only looks simple

Who's invited, who sits next to whom, whose home you're in. Every little thing I've learned from 5,000 dinners is baked into the experience, so you can build trust faster and stop being strangers before dessert. It looks like a simple dinner. Everything is already built in.

Friendship first. The jobs, the deals, the introductions come after, and it's a lot more fun that way.

Questions people ask me

What should I do if I hate networking?

Stop going to networking events. Go where people actually like each other: a dinner, a poker night, a small group that meets every month. You'll still build a network. You just won't hate it.

How do you build a network from scratch?

Give first, for a long time. Remember what people want and help them get it. When I knew nobody in New York, I did that for a year, and I still have those relationships twenty years later.

What can I say instead of "What do you do?"

Tell them something Google doesn't know about you. Compliment her necklace. Share the weird true thing that happened to you this week. Funny is sticky.

Why do women network differently than men?

Men bond on the golf course and at poker, and the deals happen there. Women bond over dinner, mahjong, spa days and stories. Same result: you trust the people you've actually had fun with.

Dr. Yao Huang founded Wonder Women more than twenty years ago with a table of four friends in New York. Today it's 20,000 women and 5,000 dinners in 30+ cities. She is also the founder of The Hatchery and a three-time TEDx speaker.