I recently met a few people who said that they had either been told, point blank, that they aren't networking the right way, or that they had tried networking and didn't like it.
To both of these statements, I say, the right way is the wrong way. So many people seem to be put off of networking because they see it as walking into a room full of more than 50 people and trying to speak to as many of them as possible about themselves and their products. When networking in this way, how do they know if they’re even speaking to the right people? Have they stopped to learn more about the people there? Are they developing relationships or just talking about themselves? My list of questions continues…
With this perception of networking plaguing so many, it's no wonder that there’s so much ‘I don’t like networking’ talk.
Whatever happened to talking to people about what interests them, what they find funny, frustrating, interesting, boring? What happened to getting to know a person without hearing 'what they do' or 'what fantastical job title' they have? The problem is that most people don't know how to start networking.
Most of us have heard the saying that you should treat people well on the way up because you don’t know who you may see on your way down. Whilst it is a useful piece of advice to consider, one thing that you don’t know is how fast someone is on their way up or down, and how they may be able to help you. You discount them now at your peril. A lot of people will see how you treat others at every encounter, so treating everyone with courtesy and respect should be the way you approach any meeting, regardless of whether you're speaking with the person who is serving you a drink or the CEO of the biggest company in the world.
This is why the 'right' way of networking is the wrong way. We should be meeting people and finding out about them as people, building professional relationships. We should be approaching the least likely person in the room; you may surprise yourself at how interesting they may be and what you may be able to do to help them. If you are lucky, they may also be able to help you in return.
With technology moving apace, it seems that we have forgotten the benefits of serendipitous or fortuitous meetings that happen in the twinkle of an eye. Or of being introduced to someone on the off chance we may hit it off. I often find that I want to do introductions for 2 people because they have a lot in common, but I step back because it may be construed as frivolous. But aren't they the best meetings?
We need to go back to having no fixed agenda, meeting people because they are interested or interesting. Doing business may be a beneficial by-product of doing it 'right', but you might just achieve the same result (or better) by doing it ‘wrong’.
Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan
Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others
Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers.
She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to:
She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations.
Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development. She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures,UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services.
Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website, Ghilaine & Co.