10 ways to ace Zoom holiday parties

(A revision my last year's article.)

I recall as a kid that a year took forever. 2021 gnawed and scratched at everything we know to be usual and turned my sense of time inside-out. Glacially.

We’re fast approaching the time for holiday parties and since there will be no ordinary group get-togethers, business or social, but rather a flurry of zoom parties, how do you expect to meet people? How do you anticipate reacquainting with others? Catch up with old friends? Ten workable ideas for you during the pandemic:

1.    Get a hold of the attendee list and earmark a few you want to meet and greet. Memorize their LinkedIn headshot and absorb their profile narrative, so you can spot them in the on-screen grid and approach them via the private chat. Research how they describe themselves and their work on LinkedIn to see where you share alma maters, common threads, or mutual interests. Bringing these mutual factors into the chat and the ensuing off-line conversation makes you more interesting, as you explore deeper connectivity. It's not being creepy--it's smart business conversation.

2.    As part of that later conversation, let them know your value proposition, by not overselling, but being proud of what you bring to the proverbial table. Perhaps you can tease out how they need your services. Perhaps they know others who do. Perhaps they don’t realize it yet. Perhaps someone in the zoom room will speak to them a bit later on and that makes you an immediate and available pre-qualified referral. Ask!

3.    Recognize it's a process. You have to work it: when you actually have that one-on-one with  the targeted person in your initial contact, is your elevator pitch natural and honed? Is the listener stimulated enough by your self-introduction to ask a follow-up question? That’s the goal…two-sided conversation to get to know each other. Make it happen even if it seems a bit awkward at first. Drop a few names of people you know in common to see if there is common ground. The ice breaks when you bring in common colleagues and/or situations, combined with your brand of personal warmth.

4.    Keep working it: when it’s your turn, as you converse, are you asking open questions like "why do you do what you do?" or "what are you really proud you accomplished this particularly challenging year?" and how about a real zinger "what unique aspects of your work makes you someone I can refer?" rather than the dull “what type of work do you do?” Start with those three unique questions and see where it goes. Be prepared to gently nudge out of the other person what you want to know because they may be rusty at professional conversation like this during the pandemic.

5.    Are you probing them in conversation for ways you can solve an issue you or they have, or work better with them as a collaborator? Do you search for ways you or your trusted connection(s) can help them? Try hard without being too pushy. You never know what may ensue.

6.    How are you going to remain memorable in other ways based on this short electronic meeting? Chances are there are others in the zoom room whose service or product is similar to yours. Are you “amazing-er” than the competitor? Show how: in gestures and in rich words.

7.  Offer to connect to them on LinkedIn if you think collaboration in the future looks promising. Send a warm note to accompany your LinkedIn connection request and remind them which zoom party you met them, the gist of the one-to-one conversation you had with them later, They may not read their LinkedIn connection requests for a few days or weeks after, so your memory jog is essential.

8.    Did you make it easy to find and read about you on LinkedIn, where you tell further in your own words, “why you?" Is your mobile number on your profile for the textaholics among us? Is your email address there too? If you blog, do you provide a link? Since we no longer exchange business cards, referencing your LinkedIn profile URL provides easy access to further information on you.

9.    Later....after you connect, and until your next arranged conversation (someone has to initiate that!), find an article online that they maty be interested in, based on your initial conversation, and send it along, with a note that you were thinking of them as you read it, and with prod to arrange another chat. Offer a time and date and once confirmed, arrange the next zoom call.

10. Your work has just begun. Please continually nurture them as a valued connection to continue the growth of your developing relationship!

This can be enjoyable and a beneficial investment for you in your new colleague(s). It’s just more challenging this year than in the past, but still an ongoing process, in these ending days of the year that extends well into the new year. Do make it part of your skillset.  Happy healthy, safe Holidays! 

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About Marc W. Halpert, LinkedIn Trainer and Evangelist

I am a “multi-preneur,” (www.dhirubhai.net/in/marchalpert) having started 3 companies, all of which I continue to operate. My latest business, connect2collaborate, spreads my LinkedIn and networking evangelism worldwide to train and coach others to better explain their brand and positioning on their LinkedIn profile pages:

• as an “evangelist” to help nonprofits cultivate talent pool, volunteers, boards, and corporate sponsors.
• as a corporate trainer for departments needing to know how to optimize LinkedIn for their responsible areas.
• as a coach helping professional practitioners in all industries use LinkedIn to better achieve their goals.
• as a high-energy speaker at conferences.
• as a volunteer coaching and teaching underemployed baby boomers to master new better career objectives.

I blog every weekday on LinkedIn topics to encourage readers towards a more beneficial use of this amazing tool, so won't you please subscribe? I speak about LinkedIn on podcasts, at online public events and provide remote private corporate sessions too.

Each year I “niche out” a population to teach LinkedIn best practices. In past years I have served lawyers and professional practitioners, and nonprofit professionals. I have authored two books on LinkedIn: the first one was published by the American Bar Association “LinkedIn Marketing Techniques for Law and Professional Practices” was released June 2017 and the second edition is due out in Spring 2021. My other book is You, Us, Them, LinkedIn Marketing Concepts for Nonprofit Professionals Who Really Want to Make A Difference" self-published in June 2018. Both are on Amazon in paper and e-book. The nonprofit book also offers an optional companion online e-course to complement it, available here.

To address an unfortunately well-needed niche in extreme unemployment in the USA, I wrote my online e-course "LinkedIn for Baby Boomers and Other Encore Career Seekers" --it's available here!

And my latest project is that a colleague and I released an e-course package for recent college grads: techniques on resumes, LinkedIn profiles, interview, and networking skills. All in one-stop shopping at firstjobaftercollege.com, integrated for your grad's best results.