The Complete Networker

If you go to networking meetings to sell, you won’t be interested in this. If you’d like to have fun meeting people, you will.

Fun tip 1. Expose yourself

Step out from behind your business persona and expose the real you! People do business with people they like but how can anyone like you if you just spout a sales pitch? If you want to be remembered as interesting, charming, funny, passionate you need to BE those things. Truly passionate people never have to ‘say’ they are passionate – they demonstrate it in the way they behave.

Fun tip 2. Never ask “What do you do?”

There are a million and one ways to open a conversation and the more you know about a person the easier it is. Before pitching up to an event find out who is going to be there and check them out on line. Then you can start with a ‘real’ question (like WHY they do what they do). If you can break the ice with an on-line conversation before meeting someone face to face (get a good on-line profile picture so that you are recognised) then you’re way ahead of the game.

If you meet a complete stranger, stay personal. Start by paying them a compliment, ask them who is the most interesting person in the room, what are they expecting from the speaker, what is the most interesting thing they’ve heard so far, who do they want to meet. Listen to the answers and have a proper conversation. Don’t jump in with a sales pitch.

Fun tip 3. If someone asks what you do, don’t tell them

Say you haven’t come here to talk about yourself (you haven’t, have you?) and ask them questions about themselves. If they go into a sales pitch, interrupt and ask different questions (its not rude – you didn’t ask to be sold to). Get them away from business and find out who they really are.

Fun tip 4. Be prepared to be dazzled

Everyone you meet is so much more than their business and they are also standing in their own acre of diamonds – their circle of contacts. If you do all the talking there is no chance that you will ever discover who they are. By showing a genuine interest in people and discovering common interests and values rather than trying to sell to them you could find yourself drawn into that circle and who knows where that might lead.

Fun tip 5. Make people feel comfortable

When you are completely comfortable with yourself you stop thinking about you and give 100% of your attention to others. This makes people feel special and they relax. If its all about you it’ll never work. People mimick our posture and facial expressions so if you are relaxed and having fun, they will be too and they’ll always be happy to be around you.

See related post  “Seductive networking”

What do you think? Will you abandon your elevator pitch and expose the real you?

Why are first impressions important?

When you walk into a networking meeting what messages are you giving out to other people and what judgements are you making about them?

However much we say we are going to keep an open mind, it’s impossible to do that in the first few seconds of meeting someone.

We all make snap judgements based on the tiniest amount of information. We may be able to put those to one side and open our minds later but because the first judgement we make is an unconscious one, we’re often not aware of it at all so it’s really difficult to take it apart and analyse it later.

This means that we erect barriers between us and other people without even being aware of them. What’s worse is that, because of the way our minds work, if we do become aware of them, instead of telling ourselves it’s ridiculous to dislike or distrust someone based on a snap judgement; we look for reasons to justify those feelings. (For more on this read Malcolm Gladwell’s fabulous book, Blink)

How many potentially really great relationships never get a second chance? Making judgements without being consciously aware of them means that we may just get a feeling that we don’t like someone, or worse, that someone doesn’t like us so we tend to avoid that person in future and very rarely get a chance to revise our first impressions.

What are first impressions based on?

There is a set of statistics which are quoted in every book and article on First Impressions I’ve ever read. They come from Albert Mehrabian’s communication work in the 1970’s and are explained in his 1981 published book “Silent Messages”. They are probably the most abused set of statistics in general use, misquoted in all sorts of situations so here is what Mehrabian has to say about them:

“Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.”

The findings are that Total Liking is made up of 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking.

See http://www.kaaj.com/psych/smorder.html and http://www.kaaj.com/psych for more details on Mehrabian

So in the first few seconds of meeting someone we decide whether or not we like them based mostly on how their face, tone of voice and words appeal to us. If the words and the tone of voice are not giving us the same message e.g, “I’m pleased to meet you”, said in sarcastic tone, we check out the facial expression to see what is really meant. What Mehrabian’s study shows that where there is ambiguity we are more likely to trust the facial expression to get the idea of what is being communicated.

I’ve seen people walk into a networking group looking friendly, hopeful, wary, anxious, aloof and even bored or angry and I know I react to their expressions but I usually wonder what is going on in their heads too.

If you are one of the people who finds it hard to walk into a room full of strangers looking relaxed and open stop worrying about your elevator pitch or what you’re wearing. Get your smile right and most of the rest will follow.

Most of us are just like the iceberg. When we look below the surface its amazing what we find.

This post was written by Ann Hawkins http://theinspiredgroup.com More posts on First Impressions will follow.