Throughout my publications I have provided tips & techniques to help improve your networking effectiveness. I thought it would be interesting and perhaps entertaining to take a look at the subject from a different perspective i.e. what you really shouldn't do.
These aren't provided in any order of priority. See if you recognize any of them from your adventures in networking land.
You have done your research and decided upon a referral group that works for you. So now what? How do you get value out of your membership?
Strategy One: Develop your 30 second to one minute elevator pitch. Most groups will allow you that much time to promote yourself. Practice saying it out loud, even to family members or the family pet if they will listen. The intent is that you become comfortable saying it without getting nervous. This will go a long way in reducing the performance anxiety that often accompanies shyness.
Meeting somebody for the first time as in a networking situation can often leave you stuck for words. Your counterpart delivers their elevator pitch and then as they pause to catch their breath they utter “so what do you do?” You go on to deliver your well-rehearsed pitch for your business. But did the two of you really communicate?
Communication is a two-way process. While the other person is sharing their story, you need to be listening closely to them. This isn’t the time to be practicing your own story in your head. This is the time to listen.
If you are actively marketing and promoting yourself on-line as a part of your networking efforts the likelihood of encountering a cyber bully increases exponentially. It is simply a matter of numbers, the more people that you network with the higher the odds of encountering one.
Cyber bullying has featured prominently lately in the media with the unfortunate suicides of several teens in North America. As adults we aren’t immune to the same tactics that these bullies use.
So what is a “cyberbully”?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia … Cyberbullyingis the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner.
Does this sound familiar? You are at a business networking session and you are captivated by a speaker who wants to regale you with a litany of important people that they have supposedly recently spent time with. “Oh, the other day I had coffee with the Mayor …” “I was just saying the very same thing to my good friend XXX, you know that he owns half the town.” “Yeah, my best friend is the Crown Attorney and she was telling me …”
To coin a phrase … “blah, blah, blah, yaddey, yaddey, yaddey!”
Have you ever wondered how close to stand to another person when conversing in a 1 to 1 at a business networking session? Okay, maybe I do have too much spare time as they say but I am sure that this is a question that many people have asked.
While I don’t have a definitive answer, I do have some thoughts on the matter. Many factors including gender, culture, trust, past experiences and self-confidence come into play.
Looking at it from a self-defence, self-preservation perspective, it is helpful to think of each of us having an invisible circle or a safety zone around us. As a preservation measure we tend to keep strangers outside of our safety zone and only let people we trust or are comfortable with into our comfort zone.
It can be a great feeling when coming home from a networking event and looking at the stack of business cards you have collected. You even spoke at length to many of the card-donators. Some, it can be a little difficult to recall who they actually were. “Now was he the tall fellow with the bad hair piece …. or was he…?” You’ve probably experienced that scenario more than once. And you know what … perhaps some of the business people that you gave your precious business card to have been thinking something similar. Hopefully not about your bad hair though.
I am sure that most of us have heard of the practice of reading a message scrawled on a public restroom wall of “For a good time call …” There is a usually a phone number accompanying the message. In all likelihood the individual mentioned is not aware of the advertising being done on their behalf nor would they likely agree with it. More than likely it was scrawled by an adolescent male, driven by testosterone and thinking it was pretty funny. Having not spent any time in the women’s restroom I can only assume that this practice only happens in the men’s.
If the individual named actually wrote the message in question well I guess it could be attributed to some savvy targeted marketing.
I’ve often heard it said in reference to “self-help” books … “If you get only one gem or a useful tip from a book it makes all of your reading time worthwhile.” While that may be true, it can have you spending a lot of time with your nose in a book.
The same principal can be applied … inefficiently … to your networking activities … “One contact can make a world of difference in your business …” In essence you are leaving your success to serendipity.
Serendipity, or leaving everything to chance, while awe-inspiring when it works, is not something that you can control or count on.
“Nice day eh?”
“To bad about the Canucks!”
“Isn’t this weather something?”
We have heard them all before … meaningless comments that are more likely to end a conversation than to advance it.
For the many people that we encounter during our daily travels perhaps this is all that is needed. If we had long drawn out conversations with everyone, we likely wouldn’t accomplish everything that we need to in a day.
Legend has it that Johnny Appleseed traveled the American countryside spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went.
In fact, according to Wikipedia, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery.
Many people’s business networking activities can be a lot like randomly spreading those apple seeds. Some might grow but most likely left to their own, they will fail to develop and eventually die off.
Relationships need to be nurtured. Often the word cultivated is used to describe what needs to take place for a relationship to grow. Both words are really describing an active interest, desire and taking action oriented steps to develop a relationship with another individual.
So how does one cultivate a relationship? I have some cynical colleagues who would say that would treat them the same way as you would cultivate mushrooms. You keep them in the dark and feed them BS [male cow manure.] I would suspect that they have few quality connections. I certainly wouldn’t want to be connected to them with that attitude.
Let’s leave the agriculture analogy for a while and go to back to the question of how does one cultivate a relationship?
Sound familiar?
“Do your hands start sweating and your legs shake with the thought of having to not only attend a business networking session but actually talk to people?”
“Do you feel paralyzed by the fear of rejection when you are at a business networking event?
“Would you rather have a root canal than attend a business networking event?
“Would you rather send an e-mail to a business lead than meet them in person?”
Well if any of these apply … you may be shy!
“Get over it!” That’s what our extroverted friends would say. “Just do what we do!”
Life isn’t that simple. We aren’t all extroverts and it would probably be a noisy world if we were. Being shy isn’t a personal defect.
You aren’t the only one out there, even if it feels like it sometimes. The world is full of shy people and that doesn’t prevent you from being an effective networker and reaping the benefits that networking can bring to your business.
Shyness can be defined as a reticence and self-consciousness, not just in stressful social situations but over all.
I recently noticed the often used saying “You Get Back What You Give” written in large letters on a roadside display board at a local church. Perhaps they are stating the obvious but then one’s base personality of being an optimist or a pessimist might come into play. Do you see the world as one of opportunity or as one of danger and threats?
If you are a believer in the law of attraction you have likely also heard the sayings “you reap what you sew” or “what you think about comes about.” Dr. Ivan Meisner, Founder of BNI describes this as the “Givers Gain” principal. The law of reciprocity says that if you provide a service or favour for another they will likely feel obligated to return the favour. I have read somewhere that it creates a tension in the individual who has received a favour to the extent that they feel a discomfort until they have returned the favour and evened the score. This may be at a subconscious level and they wouldn’t even be aware of why they are doing it.
Become a Thought Leader: Power Networking Tips & Techniques
Wikipedia defines a thought leader as being an individual or firm recognized as an authority in a specialized field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded.
Would being recognized as a leader in your field or in your business make a difference to your bottom line? Is it possible for mere mortals, average people like you and I, to become thought leaders?