One of my favorite jokes about IT professionals is “How can you tell you’re talking to an outgoing IT pro? Because when he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.”
I have a friend who fits the computer programmer stereotype. Very shy, not very outgoing, doesn’t like being in crowds, and doesn’t know what to say when life finds him in one.
I’m sure there are a lot of you who would rather pull out your toenails with a pickup than talk to new people. The prospect of it is frightening, and many times you find yourself bailing on group situations, even though you know they’re going to be good for you. But if you want to grow your personal brand and advance in your career, you’re going to have to deal with people. So here are four ways introverts can improve their networking.
Realize that no one is going to think poorly of you or laugh at you
Most people hate public speaking, because they have the fear that people are going to laugh at them or think poorly of them. They forget that the audience is actually pulling for them. They want the speaker to do well. They’ll forgive mistakes, errors, and slip ups — hell, they probably won’t even notice them.
It’s the same thing for new people you meet. They’re not going to be critical of you, laugh at your nervousness, or think poorly of you. They want to meet you and learn more about you. Keep telling yourself that when you meet someone, and you’re well on your way.
Also, remember that you should spend more of your time listening, not talking. Ask questions that get the other person to do most of the talking. That will take a lot of the pressure off yourself.
Focus on meeting just one or two people, not the whole room
A lot of people who go to their first networking meeting all have the same “oh shit” reaction when they see a roomful of people, thinking they have to meet everyone.
The nice thing about networking is that you don’t have to meet a bunch of people. In fact, I advise against that. Instead, you want to meet 2 – 3 people, and that’s it. Just find someone and get to know them. When you feel comfortable, find someone else to talk to. When you’re done and you think you’ve had all you can handle, say your good-byes and go home or back to the office. But even if you meet one, that’s one more than you would have met if you stayed home.
One word of caution: a networking meeting is not the place to find your next new friend. That’s going to take time, so don’t spend the entire time talking to a single person. Spend about 10 minutes with them, and see if there is enough of a connection that you want to sit down with them later, over coffee or lunch. Be sure to get their business card so you can make that connection later. But don’t monopolize someone’s time during the entire meeting.
Have some questions you use over and over
When I attend business networking meetings, I hear the same first question over and over: “So, what do you do?” That’s the reason we’re there, so the question is expected. But I get tired of it, so I’ll ask a few of my own: What did you do before you got this job? Where did you go to school? What part of town are you from? Where did you grow up?
The thing is, I ask everyone these questions. They’re my stock questions. I have about 5 or 6 questions I ask everyone when I’m stumped for something to talk about — frankly, I don’t know how many more realtors and personal wealth advisors I can be interested in. But when I start to delve into where people are from and where they went to school, the conversation can last for several minutes, and it’s effortless. If we run out of things to talk about — this is their first job, they didn’t go to college, and they grew up with wolves — I’ll ask them things like what business book they’re reading now, what made them get into that industry, or what they like most about it.
Someone will almost always come up and join you
The great thing about networking meetings is that people switch conversations at the drop of a hat. You’ll be talking to someone, and a third person will come up and join the conversation. Then a fourth. Pretty soon, you’ll end up talking to one of the new people, and your original partner is talking to the other one, and you never even noticed the switch.
In fact, if you stay in one spot long enough, you’ll find that you had several conversations without ever moving. Your original conversation (called a dyad) will almost always change into a three person conversation (a triad), and then add a fourth (a group; not a quadrad. Sorry.) before splitting into another dyad. Then the whole process repeats itself. I’ve gone to networking meetings where I stayed rooted in one spot for an hour as my conversations underwent this amoebic split over and over.
And if you find yourself alone, walk up to a couple people and introduce yourself. Join their dyad. They’ll ask you what you do, you’ll talk about that, and the conversation will go from there, before you’re joined by a fourth, and then you’ll split all over again.
Conversation is one of the easiest things to do for the outgoing and gregarious of us, but it can be painful and frightening for the introverted of us. But it’s really something you need to do if you want to get to know people who can help you and you can help. If you want to grow in your personal branding and professional development, you need to master the art of networking.
It’s not that hard, and it won’t kill you. I promise.
Author:
Erik Deckers is the co-owner and VP of Creative Services for Professional Blog Service in Indianapolis. He has been blogging since 1997, has been a published writer for more than 24 years, and a newspaper humor columnist for 17 years. Erik co-authored Branding Yourself: Using Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (Pearson, 2010) and also helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies.
