The secret to networking
December 6, 2009 by Matthew Karakoulakis
Filed under Articles, Blog, Habits, Mental Discipline, Motivation, Networking, Personal Organisation, Productivity, Social Development
Effective networking leads to genuine relationships with people you can help and who can help you. It is essential to business, building new friendships and dating.
In this article I will explain how to network effectively starting with your mindset. I will also explain how to create the right first impression, how to establish rapport and how to follow up properly.
Get Your Mindset Right
Your mindset plays a critical role in making anything a success – and networking is no different.
Successful networkers are typically confident and comfortable with people but some people have mental barriers that prevent them from networking with ease.
For example you may find that you tend to think negatively when around other people. If you think positively in any situation you increase your chances of success. So think optimistic thoughts.
Be aware of thoughts that pop into your head telling you that you “shouldn’t go to the party because you are tired/have to walk the dog/ don’t feel like it/ or that I’m no good at these things”. Or when you are at the social event you may tell yourself “that person looks to busy to talk to me”. These inner voices can determine the outcome of the interaction before you even start!!
The good news is that networking is a skill and can be learned and any barriers that exist can be overcome if you are aware of them, and learn how to address them.
Create The Right First Impression
Success in networking can depend on the first impressions you create. Yet many people leave the success of these impressions to chance. When you first meet somebody you are usually busy forming impressions about them and so you may not consciously be aware of them forming impressions of you. It is important to consider the impressions you want to create and how you will go about creating them.
Remember in the first twelve seconds of an interaction people will make impressions of you. Once these are formed they are very difficult to change. People tend to look for reinforcing behaviours rather than contradicitive behaviour once they have formed an impression.
A big key to creating the right first impression is to make sure your handshake is proper, not to hard and not too soft. Never shake hands when you have a sweaty palm. Make sure you smile upon the introduction. A smile can speak a thousand words. And consider your dress before you go marching off to the event.
Once you’ve made your first impression it is time to establish rapport.
Establish Rapport
I was happily in a small group of people recently when in swooped a woman whom no one could possible ignore. She descended upon our small group like a superstar television evangelist (with the image to match). In a not unexpected loud voice she declared “Hi! I’m Tammy Robinson. Here’s my card. Have a great day”. She promptly handed every person in our group her business card turned and left as quickly as she had arrived. It was not surprising that most of these cards ended in the rubbish bin!
The objective of networking is to strike a rapport with people that will open the way to building relationships. If you have established rapport with a person, you should each feel equally motivated to swap contact details. Your objective should be that the person remembers you as someone they had a positive interaction with and wants to see you again.
Start the conversation
You can start a conversation by asking open ended questions ie questions that start with ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘how’, ‘when’ or ‘why’. Make sure you deliver the questions with fitting body language, and listen to the answers intently. Remember every person you meet is absolutely fascinating, if given the opportunity.
In The 7 habits of highly effective people, Stephen Covey stresses the importance of listening. Covey claims that truly genuine listeners don’t just pick up on the words they hear, but the feelings or meaning behind the words. To do this, you need to watch for signs of feelings which are seen through facial expressions, body posture, movement, and tone of voice.
You can also start the conversation by telling stories to emphasize points, or making statements. Don’t rely on the other person to do all the talking. If you were to ask one question after the other the interaction would appear as a job interview rather than a meaningful conversation.
The key to telling personal ’stories’ is to keep them relevant and succinct and make sure they don’t make you look too fantastic. Remember us Australians have such a thing as ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’.
Making relevant and genuine observations about the person you are talking to is good etiquette and is a wonderful way to show genuine interest and get the conversation going. For example you can pay the person a compliment or notice something different about them. Make sure you focus on positive observations only.
These tactics can also be used throughout the conversation. The key is to use these tools to make the conversation flow, especially when changing topics.
Topics
Identify topics you are both interested in discussing. It is easier to be genuinely interested in someone if you are discussing a topic you are genuinely interested in.
Use emotional intelligence
Developing rapport involves a high level of emotional intelligence, see the book by Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1996). Goleman explains that emotional intelligence includes optimism, a genuine desire to understand other people and their needs, flexibility in approach, listening, empathy, focus on the other person’s needs rather than your own, honesty, resilience to rejection, reliability, responsiveness and being well organised.
Remember their name
A persons name is generally their favorite word so remembering a persons name is important.
You may find it helpful to use a method for remembering names. One method is to immediately (and consciously) take a mental note of the person’s name, and associate that name with something about them or someone else you know with the same name. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t remember someone’s name straight away and feel free to re-ask if necessary.
Look for opportunities to keep in contact
Throughout your conversation you should look for ‘hook points’. A hook point is a point of establishing a valid reason to keep momentum of the new relationship going and exchanging contact details.
Follow Up Properly
Its all well and good to establish rapport in the midst of having a great conversation with somebody but truly effective networking is more than that. It is about developing relationships. In order to develop relationships it is about ongoing interactions.
Get their contact details
Many people find it difficult to get across the ‘invisible follow up line’ – the line between “it was lovely chatting to you and hope to see you again sometime” to “we will keep in touch by…”.
To achieve this you not only need to create good impressions and build rapport, you also need to create the opportunity to follow up. When you meet somebody that you would like to see again it is important to look for every opportunity to stay in touch.
Look for opportunities in the conversation to establish an event together. For example I like theatre so if somebody that I am interested in talks about a play I will use that as an opportunity to say something like “Hey lets go see a play together”. Once they agree I then see that as the opportunity to exchange contact details so that we can keep in touch and contact one another about a play. Then when I call them it is expected that we are going to meet.
Of course if nothing arises in the conversation that we would both like to do together I can always say “It was nice talking to you. Let’s grab a meal/coffee sometime” and then swap numbers after that.
It is best not to only give your details to them in the hope that they will call you. It is better to be in control of the follow up. The other person may be lazy and not call you or may even be to shy to reconnect. You should be in control of this process. That’s why you make sure you get their contact details.
I prefer swapping phone numbers over email or Facebook. The telephone is more personal and it is easier to re establish rapport.
Making the contact
It goes without saying that once you have created the opportunity to follow up you then need to act on it.
It is usually best to make the first contact within one week of meeting the other person and have a clear objective and reason for calling. This will be easy if you created the opportunity to follow up when you met. If not remember that you don’t always need a reason to call other than ‘catching up’.
Remember voice tone accounts for 93% of the message on the telephone.
Manage Your Network
It is important to manage your network of people. You should never use the excuse of ‘not enough time’. It does not need to take a lot of time, and the time you put in is worth it!!
Some ways to manage your network are to meet for a chat or coffee, send people emails, organise events together, invite them to events you are going to that you think they will also be interested in, remember important dates ie their birthday, or send them cards or gifts (these giftts don’t need to be expensive).
One method I often use is sending a group sms. This saves a lot of time, touches a lot of people in your network at once and can be made personal.
By using these methods you will become a great networker in no time!!
Feel free to post any specific questions or comments you have.
- Matthew