Exactly How to Network

You're at an event, you're by yourself and you're standing alone not sure where to start or how to engage in meaningful conversation with other professionals in the room; you're not alone. Over the past few years in my professional career as I've been attending more events and networking, I've realized a very simple recipe to networking effectively. Consider this a general beginners guide that can work for anyone in any industry for any role.

1.Approach - Stop convincing yourself “I just gotta get a water, check my seat, go to the bathroom or put my coat away before I start networking”. Networking starts on your way to doing any of those things! For instance, I made a great connection with someone last night at a sales event in Toronto while in line grabbing a slice of pizza and a drink by asking “so, is it a beer kind of night or a water kind of night for you?” Their response: "Well I guess that would depend how hard my day was." Boom, introduce yourself. Now you're networking.

2. Have Your Intro - When people ask what you do, have your one-liner prepared. Share it. Make it Memorable. I like to start with the problem I solve, then build onto that with a brief overview of how we solve it in a very simple and easy to understand language leaving some information gap for conversation - Now they're asking you questions.

"Many brands have a hard time understanding what their customers actually want. I work in sales at Trend Hunter where we crowd source a vast amount of consumer research and boil it down to digestible custom reports; helping these brands create new products their customers sincerely want to buy."

As you move forward into your conversations, try to avoid basic questions and stay high level: What’s your ultimate end goal in life? Thoughts on AI in the BDR world or in X industry? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Get them really thinking and don't be afraid to open up yourself too.

3. Connect Online - Finally, have a way to keep in touch. Business card. Email. Connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter. Etc. If you think it's awkward to ask, just be honest: "I'm making it my goal to build my online network and would love to follow your journey in business - What's your LinkedIn?" It's 2019. It's acceptable.

Use this as a basic guide to start networking more effectively. DM me here on LinkedIn for some further tips or tricks on how to become even more effective with pre and post networking actions, or some simple one-liners to start the conversation. Drop some of your stories or your introductions in the comments too to share with other readers. But ultimately, if there’s one tip that will help your networking swagger, remember networking usually begins with a simple and informal approach; networking happens on your way to the pizza.