Networking … ugh! I completely understand that reaction. While reaching out to others is critical in job searches, career management and business building, the concept makes lots of people cringe. And, that’s why I suggest taking a different approach.

I like to think more about making connections and building relationships. Even when attending networking functions, you don’t have to ‘work the room’ in the traditional networking way.

Yeah, elevator pitches, 30-second speeches and the like all have their places. For instance, I believe that going through the process of creating those tools can help to clarify your message and how you talk about who you serve and how you impact your organization and/or clients. But, then you can get creative in how you share that message.

A few tips to help shift your perspective about networking and begin to create meaningful connections and relationships …

• First, let yourself off the hook about making ‘x’ number contacts and collecting a minimum number of business cards. As in most circumstances, quality beats quantity.
• Next, get curious about those around you. See somebody with an interesting company name, logo, etc.? Hear an interesting accent? Engage people based on genuine interest. Conversations that start here are more likely to have a natural flow and evolution.
• Listen. And, listen more than you talk. Really hear what’s being said and connect from this place. By putting the focus over there, on the other person, we cancel out the voice in our head that’s focusing on our own agenda (How can I get this person’s card? When should I pitch my service/product, offer my resume, etc.?).

Building a network isn’t only about what happens in the room. Building relationships takes time and attention that extends well beyond the walls of the gathering and beyond our individual agendas.

Connect with those that inspire you. Trust your intuition about those with whom you’d like to connect. This makes following up after your initial interaction more of a natural extension of your previous encounter and less like a mechanical next step.

Happy non-networking!

p.s. Non-networking doesn’t only happen at networking events. Building connections can happen in the grocery store, at the daycare center, or at a doctor’s office. More on this in a future post. Stay tuned …

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Tags: Career, Connecting, Networking

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 8th, 2007 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Connecting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.