Networking has never really been high on my enjoyment list; necessary and essential to building contacts in the business world, but something that I have always avoided as far as possible. That was until I decided to face my fears head on and got some pointers from those that make it look effortless. One of my points of reference was Debra Fine's 'The Art of Small Talk'. Networking and small talk is not rocket science, pretty much common sense, but it does help to have a couple of tricks to make the process a lot less daunting. This is an easy read, and can be downloaded from the Internet. One of the first things the book does is focus on how to start a conversation and remembering and using someone's name. I think we've all been in a situation where you can't remember someone's name. Debra advises that instead of an embarrassing situation, or waiting for divine inspiration to try and remember the person's name, it is OK, to be proactive and admit to the person that you've forgotten their name. What I like about the book is that it gives tips and suggestions of talking points and how to jump start conversations, keeping the conversation going and even how to make graceful exits.
As Debra says, "The cardinal rule of the exit is that you when you depart, you do what you said you were going to do. If you said good-bye to Joanne by telling her that you were going to see the exhibitions, go do it. If you allow yourself to get sidetracked en route to your new destination, you run the risk of insulting your former partner." This happened to me once before, and I felt incredibly guilty; we had said our good byes and were ready to leave (as we had indicated), but then got side tracked by an amazing dessert buffet. Needless to say lesson learnt.
Something else that Debra suggests is to use small talk as a picture frame around business conversations. Begin and end with small talk when making a presentation to a client, negotiating, providing a service etc. Some other tips is to greet people warmly, make eye contact; use the person's name in conversation, show an interest in others, dig deeper, be a good listener and stop being an adviser.
Some of the other tips that I have picked up from attending sessions about networking and how to maximise them:
1. Have a goal in mind of what you want to achieve before the time, i.e. what do you want to achieve from the networking session e.g. make two solid connections.
2. It's obviously good to have business cards on hand, but learn to become a business card collector, in that way you have control over making sure that future interactions happen. If you just give your card away, then you have no way of following up with that person.
3. When it comes to business cards, look at the person's business card, don't just take it and stick it into a pocket. Actually look at the card and comment on the person's name / location or something about the card.
4. Make a note on the business card of where you met the person and some interesting facts about the person; I have a ton of business cards, and it definitely helps to keep track of who I met where.
5. The point of networking is to build relationships, so send a short email after the networking session to the connections that you made.
No comments:
Post a Comment