Networking is a positive tool for marketing and raising your visibility when you run a business. It’s a great place to swap stories and test out your business message with potential clients or referral partners, as long as you’ve developed good relationships. Yet building good relationships takes time and if you’re fairly introverted, it takes effort too. And confidence that they’re the right people for you to connect with. Then you can get into some of the best conversations, those when you go deep into what matters to you — the story of who you are, your values and what your soul wants from the world.
Hiding within those stories that you find most interesting to talk about, are the nuggets for your book. So if you know you want to write one, I’d recommend paying close attention to what lights you up when you are talking with people you don’t know well. However, you can’t get to those topics unless you feel truly safe.
Whether meeting people online or in person, we all realise that first impressions count towards how comfortable we feel. So, are you unknowingly making these mistakes when you meet new people? Things like:
Sight: you’re worried about what to wear, so you go with something that will blend in. Whereas picking a colour you love, bright or not, will help you feel happy on the inside, which will shine through when you talk. Men, a suit may look great, but it’s like armour — and this is not a battlefield!
Sound: most of us speak without worrying about our accent or how our voice sounds, because you can’t change it, right? Wrong. Breathing more deeply affects the quality of your voice and if you want to build trust with people, they need to hear you at your true depth. It’s not about being louder, it’s about bringing the resonance of your feelings into your speech. Did you know, you can quickly warm up your voice by doing a few lip trills (make the ridiculous sound of a motor rumbling/vibrating through your lips!) and singing a few vowels (Arrr-Errrr-Eeee-Ooooo-Orrrr) before you start the meeting? People are more likely to hear when you’re passionate and care about what you’re saying.
Smell: yes, most of us shower, aiming to smell fresh and pleasant. But if you wear too much aftershave or synthetic perfume, it can assault the senses too strongly. I’ve started to use essential oils as an alternative to perfume.
Touch: it’s great for building connection although we need to be respectful of other people’s boundaries at all times. You can figure it out consciously or ask how open they are. I offered a lady a hug at a networking, and I could tell she felt awkward, maybe because I was new to the room, but she felt it was too late to back away. There are some people I instinctively don’t feel ready to hug too. We need a frank and honest way round that, if in a room full of hugs. But in summer once, a man I didn’t know well tapped my bare back to get my attention, as I was walking in front of him and I nearly shot through the roof with shock; that felt far too intimate!
Thinking about your own sensory settings before you join a new group is a great way to prepare your own boundaries and consider those of others. Even standing too close to someone can affect their ease.
Small talk to start off with
That’s why small talk is the perfect way to get to know people, even though it’s something I always struggled with. It’s a little easier at in-person networking because it gives you the chance to ask simple stuff, like “how was your journey here?” and “how far did you have to travel?” Whereas if you’re online, you’ll have to go for things like, “How’s your week been so far?” or “What’s the highlight of your week been?” Personally, I hate the question, “What do you do?” even though it’s a common one.
However, you need those baby steps in the conversation — like us Brits always talking about the weather — to help us navigate the early days of a relationship. And lighter conversations allow us to move on around the room and meet more people. The challenge of loving deep conversations and listening to people, is I often find myself deeply engrossed in a conversation with one person. That means later I realise I’ve ignored the rest of the room — not the greatest networking strategy! It does help the other person figure out whether they trust me enough with their book ideas and for that, I’m grateful.
Next steps: onto the big stories
Once we reach a place of trust — and sometimes that flows in quite quickly and instinctively — we find ourselves sharing some of our innermost stories. One of my passions is teenage mental health, because it has affected my wider family deeply and now I have two teens of my own. However, it’s a tough one because I often feel the root cause of much teenage angst lies in how well they’re taught to manage their emotions. (So like many kids think, it’s all the parents’ fault?!) However, if you get me talking about it, beware: the tears might flow. And here’s the problem, our big stories can be triggers to emotions that need releasing. Networking is not an ideal place to go there! It’s one reason I’m a big advocate of sharing these stories, because the act of talking and having someone listen — or writing it down — releases you from the rawness. You can write the whole story, then edit it later or leave it unpublished. Come back to it when you’re ready to turn it into a story you can tell lightly, around strangers, without digging into the wound.