The most underrated networking move you’re not making...
I reached out as a customer. Here’s what happened.
I want to tell you the networking strategy most people are completely overlooking.
Be a real customer first.
I know. It sounds almost too simple. But I’ve watched this work over and over again in my own business and in the businesses of the women I work with, and I think it’s one of the most genuinely underused moves in relationship-building.
When I reached out to Steph Weibring to invite her on the podcast, I didn’t craft a formal pitch. I didn’t put together a media kit. I reached out as a customer. I DM’d her team on Instagram and told them that I love Joy Creative Shop, that I’ve been following what she’s built, and asked if she’d want to come on the show.
They replied within minutes. Steph said yes the same day.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s what happens when you lead with genuine appreciation instead of a transactional ask. The energy is completely different. You’re not asking for a favor from someone you don’t know. You’re reaching out as someone who already believes in their work.
Here’s the thing most people get backwards: they try to build the relationship first and become a customer later. But buying something someone made, caring about what they’ve built, and telling them specifically what you love about it, that IS building the relationship. Often faster than anything else.
I’ve seen this play out in so many directions. The Jenn Sherman story started with me being a genuine Peloton rider who actually rode with Jenn every week. The Steph story started with me actually buying from Joy Creative Shop. The best podcast guests I’ve ever had came to me not because I cold pitched them but because I was already a genuine fan of their work.
And then there’s perfectwhitetee.
I wear their Ziggy sweatshirt almost every day, I have it it maybe ten colors. It shows up in my podcast recordings, in my social media, in my life. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s become part of how people know me. So when I reached out to the founders, I reached out as a customer, because I am one. We had an incredible conversation on the podcast. I didn’t say a single thing I didn’t mean. No paid partnership. No agreement. Just a genuine customer who wanted to share what they’d built with her community.
Almost a year later, they reached back out to me via email.
They wanted to buy usage rights to our episode. They’d been watching what I’d built with it, how it had performed, how my audience had responded. They wanted to use it as a test in their Meta ads, with my content, my name, my credibility attached to it.
We came to an agreement. I got paid. My content is going to be running in their ads. They’re crediting me with it.
None of that was in the plan when I reached out as a customer. There was no plan. There was just: I genuinely love this brand, I wear this sweatshirt constantly, I want to share it with the women who listen to me.
That’s it. That’s the whole strategy.
This week’s move:
Think about three people or brands you genuinely admire right now. Not strategically. Not “who would be good for my business.” Who do you actually follow, buy from, read, listen to, believe in?
Now think about whether you’ve ever told them.
Pick one. Send a note. Not a pitch. Just: I’m a real customer, here’s specifically what I love about what you’ve built, here’s who I am if you want to know.
You don’t have to have an ask attached. Often the relationship that forms from that note becomes something neither of you expected.
And if you do have an ask? Make it easy. One specific thing, something low friction. Something that costs them almost nothing to say yes to.
Being a genuine fan is the warmest possible introduction in business. Stop waiting for someone to introduce you. Introduce yourself through the thing you love about their work.
You can hear me talk about it today on the podcast with Steph Weibring, Founder of Joy Creative Shop. She has one hell of a story. You absolutely are going to want to listen to this one.
I’ll see you back here on Thursday for our Deep Dive. It’s the customer-to-collaborator sequence in full, with the specific steps and the template. You’re not going to want to miss this one.
Have a great week,
Lindsay Pinchuk, Host + Founder of Dear FoundHer…
THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST…
Steph Weibring’s Etsy shop made $8,000 in an entire year. Then she made $8,000 in a single November. On this episode of Dear FoundHer…, Steph, founder and CEO of Joy Creative Shop, tells me exactly what changed: a partnership strategy that let her borrow an audience instead of building one from scratch. No massive following required, just the right move at the right time.
We also get into the chaotic weekend behind her now-famous bag of tags, why copycats on Etsy and TikTok don’t actually worry her, and how a handwritten note still beats an AI-written thank you every time. Steph turned that old-school instinct into a full subscription business. And for anyone over 40 who dreads showing up on camera, she’s honest about the personal brand strategy she resisted for years, and why she now runs her company as a “lowercase ceo,” a title she made up on purpose.
Steph closes with three steps for any woman starting a business this year. Press play to hear the full story behind the November everything changed.