Quality Over Quantity: What I Learned at Industry Events

After two decades of broadcasting live television and stepping onto stages from London to Sydney, I have come to believe that the most powerful outcome of an industry event is rarely the panel you hosted or the keynote you delivered. It is the conversation in the foyer afterwards, the one that lingers long after the lights go down. Networking, in the way I was originally taught, suggested a transactional exchange — a stack of business cards gathered like trophies, a phonebook of names collected in a single evening. Real life taught me something gentler and far more useful.

The shift from quantity to quality did not happen overnight. It came through missed trains home from evening events, through Sunday mornings spent clearing emails from people I had barely spoken to, and through the slow recognition that a single genuine conversation could outwork a hundred hollow follow-ups. These days I walk into a room looking for two or three people I genuinely want to know better. Everything else is decoration.

The conference circuit trap

The first industry events I attended followed a familiar rhythm: arrive early, work the room, leave with a tote bag and a thick folder of contacts. There was an unspoken scoreboard running in the background — how many people did you speak to, how many connections did you secure, how quickly could you reply to follow-ups while still on the train home. I played that game diligently for years, and it produced a contact list that impressed on paper but rarely produced collaboration, friendship, or opportunity.

What I missed at the time was the cost. Each rushed exchange was a small betrayal of presence. I was physically in the room but mentally already drafting the next email, scanning for the next introduction, calculating the next move. By the end of a long conference day, I was exhausted but strangely empty, surrounded by acquaintances I could not honestly describe. The pile of business cards became a kind of evidence — proof I had attended, proof I had networked, but proof of nothing meaningful at all.

Listening as a quiet superpower

Once I stopped trying to meet everyone, I discovered I could actually listen. This sounds obvious written down, but it is startling how rare deep listening is at industry events. Most conversations are two monologues politely taking turns, each person waiting for a gap to insert their own point, their own pitch, their own clever aside. The moment you stop competing for airtime, something changes in the room. People relax. They tell you what they actually care about rather than what they think you want to hear.

I noticed this first at a women in media breakfast in Melbourne, where a senior executive told me something she had never shared publicly about her early career in regional Victoria. The conversation lasted twelve minutes. We never exchanged business cards. Eighteen months later she invited me to moderate a leadership panel because, as she put it, I was the only person who had asked her a real question that morning. Listening, I realised, was not just polite. It was strategic.

The Australian warmth factor

Australia has shaped my thinking on this more than any other market. I have spoken at corporate gatherings in Sydney, hosted awards nights in Brisbane, and run intimate salons in Adelaide, and there is something distinctive about how Australians approach professional connection. The hospitality is generous and unforced. People offer to introduce you to a colleague, walk you to the next session, share their schooner at the bar. There is less of the transactional gloss you sometimes find on larger international circuits, and more of the simple belief that a good conversation is worth the time it takes.

Australian workplace culture, governed by frameworks like the Fair Work Act and shaped by long-standing traditions of mateship, prizes authenticity over polish. Audiences respond to presenters who sound like themselves rather than like a press release. I have noticed the same is true of networking: people in this part of the world remember the colleague who asked about their weekend, their family, the football team they follow, far more vividly than the one who slipped in a polished pitch between canapés. The values written into Australian commercial life — fair dealing, transparency, a fair go — apply just as much in a foyer conversation as they do in a contract.

Why one real conversation beats a hundred business cards

A single meaningful exchange at an event does something a contact list never can. It creates memory. The other person remembers you because you made them feel seen, and you remember them because they gave you something specific — a piece of advice, a recommendation, an insight into their world. That mutual recognition is the seed of almost every working partnership I have built in the last decade. It is also what underpins every lasting friendship I have made on the road.

The maths, when you sit down and actually do it, is striking. Suppose you attend a typical industry event, work the room diligently, and collect thirty new contacts. Suppose ten per cent respond to a follow-up email. That is three connections. Now suppose you instead have three proper conversations, take notes afterwards, and send each person a thoughtful, individual message within forty-eight hours. You almost certainly end up with three relationships that lead somewhere. The first approach gives you a number. The second gives you a future.

What better follow-up actually looks like

The difference between the two approaches usually shows up in the follow-up. The transactional networker sends a templated note within an hour, while the details are still fresh and the goodwill is at its peak. The quality-focused networker waits, but not too long, and writes something specific. A line about what the other person said that stayed with you. A reference to a book or an article they mentioned. An offer to introduce them to someone you genuinely think they should know.

For me, follow-up has become almost ritualistic. The morning after an event I sit with a flat white — a habit I have happily borrowed from Australian café culture — and write three short notes by hand on decent paper. Handwritten correspondence, in an age of endless digital noise, has become its own quiet statement of intent. Where a digital follow-up is necessary, I keep it short, warm, and human. I mention something concrete from our conversation and offer one specific next step, whether that is a coffee, a call, or an introduction. People can tell within seconds whether a message is genuine or automated, and they reward the former almost every time.

Building a quieter, more useful network

The network I have built slowly, over years, looks very different from the one I assembled in my early broadcasting career. It is smaller, deeper, and far more willing to pick up the phone. When I am preparing for a keynote or working on a new book, I know exactly who to call because we have a real relationship, not just a contact entry. The size of that circle matters less than the texture of it.

A few habits have made the difference:

• Choose one or two people per event to give your full attention to, rather than trying to meet everyone in the room.
• Listen longer than feels comfortable, especially in the first five minutes of a conversation, when most people are still composing their next line.
• Follow up within a week with something specific, whether that is a recommendation, an article, or a simple note of thanks.
• Treat your existing network like a garden — water the relationships already growing rather than constantly sowing new seeds.

There is a quiet confidence that comes from this approach. You stop performing networking and start having conversations. People notice, and they remember.

Bringing this thinking into my own work

Everything I have learned on the circuit now shapes how I host, speak, and write. On stage I try to slow the room down rather than fill it with noise. In conversation I aim for the same. The principles behind This Girl Is On Fire — the community platform I lead for women navigating change — are built on the same belief that depth, honesty, and genuine human connection matter more than reach or scale. If you want to see this in action, the video collection on my site captures a number of recent talks where I speak at length about meaningful connection rather than surface networking.

A handful of resources have shaped this thinking over the years, and I return to them often:

• Cal Newport's writing on focused attention and the cost of shallow work.
• Priya Parker's work on gathering people with intention rather than habit.
• The long tradition of Australian storytelling, from memoir to community radio, where one good yarn outweighs a hundred polished ones.
• The practice of keeping a private notebook of conversations worth remembering.

If you would like to see the books, places, and small luxuries that have shaped my working life, I keep a quietly updated list of my personal recommendations on the site.