Greetings from the motherland Abakwa (Bamenda) to you fellow amazing Steem mates. I suppose we're all doing fantastic.
When we attend events, one of the most important life-changing things is the ability to network with like-minded individuals, potential clients, mentors, or so. However, for many, this is always a struggle. So today, I want to share a few tips to help us navigate networking properly at gatherings. I hope you find this useful. Let's go!
Do Your Research: Know the event's theme, attendees, and speakers. This will help you tailor your conversations and identify potential connections. In public speaking, we say, "Know your audience."
Set Clear Goals: Determine what you want to achieve from the event. Are you looking for potential clients, partners, or mentors? Having a clear goal will help you focus your efforts.
Prepare Your Elevator Pitch: Practice a concise and engaging introduction that highlights your skills, experience, and what you're looking for. Practice it like a presentation and master it so that it comes out naturally and captivatingly.
Dress Appropriately: Choose an outfit that reflects the event's dress code and makes you feel confident. When you feel confident, it'll be evident in your posture, facial expression, and more.
Arrive Early: Getting there early allows you to secure a good spot, mingle with other early arrivals, and make a positive first impression. For a speaker, this point is powerful because sometimes events take too long, and you might have other commitments to attend to that might require you to leave early. It also enables you as a speaker to connect with your audience by maybe mentioning their names in the course of your presentation. This builds rapport and fosters great connection.
Be Approachable: Smile, make eye contact, and maintain open body language. This will encourage others to approach you.
Start Conversations: Don't wait for others to initiate. Strike up conversations by asking open-ended questions, sharing interesting observations, or offering compliments. As for me, I always start with a compliment on perhaps the person's presentation, if they were speakers at the event, or compliments about their outfit. If the people are authors, then it's easy to start a convo, but you'll have to have read the book upfront and prepared questions or remarks about the book.
Active Listening: Treat people as people and not as opportunities. Pay full attention to the person you're speaking with, ask follow-up questions, and show genuine interest in their ideas. Active Listening permits you to be able to make valuable contributions to the conversation, and that might just do the work and build a strong foundation for a solid relationship with the person or people.
Collect Business Cards: Exchange cards with people you connect with and follow up with a personalized message. Now, this is tricky because many people get excited about just handing cards at everyone they meet at an event, even the people they stand to benefit from. The idea is that it doesn't make sense to give out a complimentary card to someone from whom you stand to benefit more, especially if the person is a high-profile personality. This is simply because they might never reach out to you. So my advice is that you should rather take their card and reach out to them. For example, imagine that I met Samuel Eto'o Fils, and in the course of our discussion, I hand him my card. Even I wouldn't expect him to reach out to me. Exchanging cards is wonderful, but there are cases that you just need to take them and reach out to the people.
Follow Up: Send a brief email or LinkedIn message to maintain the connection and offer further assistance or information. It is advised to do this not too long after you collected their contact information. This is to ensure that the memory of you is still fresh in the minds of the people. Always aim for at most 48 hours.
Remember, networking is about building relationships, not just collecting contacts. Be genuine, be yourself, and enjoy the process!