It's conference time, folks...

Sigh. It's the first breath I've taken in the last few weeks as speaker season (or conference time) is among us in the financial services world. So much good stuff is going on out there from the eMoney Summit, Riskalyze's Fearless Investing Summit, Wealth/Stack, and so many others to even name.

It's exciting - right? You go - and see old friends and hang out and grab drinks, breakfast, lunch, dinner, a run, a walk, a session, a..... well you get the point. You basically go and hang out with the same two, three, even four or five people and come back satiated that you caught up with friends you love, but you missed something so important to your long-term personal and professional growth:

You didn't network well.

C'mon - be honest with yourself. I saw your Twitter feed, friends. Let's be real!

So you might have been outed that you didn't do such a great job of this, but the real question should be, "How do I network better?"

Some of you will be thinking to yourself, "I'm not a great networker" which is actually not true and I'll explain what I mean in a moment and others will say, "If someone wants to meet me they should just come up and talk" and while that might be your feelings, it's not accurate either.

Networking is the hardest easy thing you can accomplish by making a few tweaks to how you do it. They're simple - I promise.

Here are 3 tips to be a better network at your next shin-dig:

1. Sit with those you don't know.

Remember - it's the hardest easy thing you can accomplish and the first exercise merely requires you to sit....with someone you've never met. I learned a while back reading a book called "Be Our Guest" - written by experts at the Disney Institute and they have a meeting rule called 'Listening At A Different Perspective'.

In a nutshell, think about where you sit at dinner, at church, etc. - it's the same spot pretty much every time. When you listen at a different perspective, it means you merely force yourself to sit in a different part of the room than where you would normally sit - so why not try this at your next conference session? Sit with those you don't know.

2. Eat lunch with someone you've never met.

In the same vein as #1 - you can also sit with this exercise, too. Simply find a new lunch buddy at your next meeting, summit, retreat, conference, etc. I mean - you gotta eat, right?

For example, go up to a table and say, "Do you mind if I join you?" It's seven words that will lead you to new people to talk to because barring someone being a jerk, the answer invariably will be, "Absolutely!" It just takes one person asking and voila - new people and you're eating lunch with someone you've never met.

3. Purposely find someone who doesn't look like you.

Lastly, this is the most difficult thing I will ask you to do that will profoundly change you. Find someone who doesn't look like you and do either #1 or #2 above.

Diversity and inclusion seems to be the buzz of today and the bottom-line is that in order to grow to be our very best versions of ourselves, it means we must seek out those who do not look like us and extend a conversation. You will be amazed at what you learn from others outside of your natural bias and it will grow our profession by leaps and bounds.

Networking doesn't have to be about elevator pitches and all this other business building crap I hear unloaded on us day-in and day-out. What about just being the very best versions of us as human beings, networking with new people in genuine ways, and let the elevator pitch and business building happen in natural, authentic ways? Crazy idea, right?

Now - go forth and network!

-SB

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Sheryl Brown is an international speaker on social and digital marketing strategies for financial service professionals and organizations. She is also the CEO of Females and Finance, a networking community for women working in financial services and financial technology as well as the men who champion them. She is a natural connector and would love to meet YOU so feel free to reach out to her and connect!