Situational Networking Playbook
Network as Yourself
Your practical guide to introducing yourself, reading the room, and building real relationships.
Be curious. Be memorable. Be you. Build real relationships.
By Sapna Malhotra, CMC, CPA, ICD.DPrincipal and Founder, Digiruptor™
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How to use this Playbook
One section per module.
This is not a list of networking tips. It is your words, your moves and your situations, captured in one place so you can use them before your next conference, client event, board dinner or coffee.
The Human Advantage
Your networking intention and one relationship behaviour to practise
Memorable Introductions
An introduction that sounds like you, in 60, 30 and 10 seconds, plus your Return the Ball lines
Read the Room
A plan for one real room: how you will observe, enter, open, go deeper and recover
Build the Relationship
Your exits, your follow up, your promises kept, and your DEEDS plan
Your system
Everything above, on one page you can carry into the room
Three habits
Three habits that make it work.
Write when the video says pause.
Two or three short prompts per module. A few honest lines beat a perfect paragraph.
Say it out loud.
Your words are not finished when they look good on the page. They are ready when you can use them in a conversation.
Use it tonight.
Each section ends with a card. Screenshot it, print it, or keep it on your phone for the next room.
The through line
The relationship rhythm.
Networking is not an event. It is a relationship practice. DEEDS is the rhythm that runs through every module.
Discover
Notice people, ideas and possibilities
Where you practise it · Module 3Engage
Start the conversation
Where you practise it · Module 3Excite
Create interest through curiosity, relevance and presence
Where you practise it · Module 3Delight
Do what you said you would do
Where you practise it · Module 4Surprise
Add value when it is genuine and useful
Where you practise it · Module 4Repeat
Relationships are built over time. Back to Discover
Where you practise it · Module 4A connection is a beginning, not an outcome.
Not every relationship will move through every stage. That is not the point.
Module 02 · Be yourself. Be remembered.
Build it in Four Moves.
Your introduction is not your biography. It is an invitation to talk, exchange ideas and find a point of connection. Ingredients, not a script. You will not use all four every time.
A second example, from Connect the Dots: “I care about helping people communicate clearly in high-stakes moments. I build simple frameworks that help leaders turn uncertainty into confident action.”
Use it tonight
Each section ends with a card.
Screenshot it, print it, or keep it on your phone for the next room.
Five seconds of courage
- Say hello.
- Ask one genuine question.
- Take the first step before your brain creates ten reasons not to.
The 1-1-1 approach
- One session you genuinely care about.
- One meaningful conversation.
- One follow up within 24 hours.
No performance. No exhaustion. Just intention.
Send, or prepare, one follow up
- Think of someone you met recently where a follow up would genuinely fit.
- Write one Reference, one Value, one small Next Step, and send it within 24 hours.
- No one yet? Prepare the message for the next right person, and decide when you will send it.
A note on Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI can help you prepare, rehearse and draft. It cannot walk into the room for you, and it cannot build trust for you. Throughout this Playbook, AI prompts come with one rule: you provide the real facts, AI helps with the ordinary work, and you are always the final editor. Never let it invent an accomplishment, a memory or a promise you did not make.
About Sapna
Sapna Malhotra CMC, CPA, ICD.D
Board director, fractional transformation executive and advisor on AI, governance, trust and risk. For nearly three decades, Sapna has led complex technology and regulatory transformations, including accountability for a $1.5 billion global technology investment portfolio at Scotiabank.
Author of Connect the Dots and host of the CanInnovate podcast.
The human translator between risk & reward.
Keep going
Now take it into a real room.
It was about building a way to network as yourself, and relationships you can continue long after the event ends.
Be curious. Be memorable. Be you. Build real relationships.
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