With people a little tired of Zoom conferences, many of them are starting to venture out to in person meetings, meaning that there will be more opportunity to network. Unfortunately, great networking is a skill that few people seem to have achieved.
A colleague of mine in the UK, Will Kintish, is an expert on successful networking. He believes that ‘less is more’ so here’s just 10 keywords (with a brief explanation) on how to be a successful networker.
Turn up
Woody Allen quote “80% of success is just turning up”. My quote “If you don’t go, you’ll never know”.
Be nice
People buy people before they buy services and products. Inexperienced networkers blur the activities of selling and networking.
Networking is simply building relationships; the 3 key steps to doing that are know, like and trust. When people don’t like us they generally don’t want to talk to us, do business with is or support us. But when there is rapport then lots of positives can come about. When it comes to trust it is simple. Be reliable and fulfil your commitments.
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Ask questions
How can you spot a potential opportunity to help others or get advice for yourself without asking insightful questions? The most interesting people we meet are those most interested in us.
When you don’t ask enough questions people might think you only want to talk about yourself or don’t really care what others have to say.
Listen carefully
Listening can often be difficult particularly in a room where there are lots of distractions. Work hard at active listening rather than what most people do and that is to wait for the other person to stop talking so they can jump in with their contribution. Face the person, give good eye contact and show through your body language you are carefully listening
Follow up
Many are good at the above points but often fall at the last hurdle. ‘I’m too busy’ ‘They will follow me up if they need me’ ‘ I don’t like appearing to sell’ are 3 phrase I hear when my audiences admit they are not good at the follow up. But when you meet someone who has a problem and your knowledge, expertise and experience matches, then why not always follow up? You’re adding value, not selling.
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