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As the old saying goes, it’s not what you know, but who you know. And today, more and more people are using networking to find those contacts who can open doors.
“We network for four reasons - Advice, Information, Recommendations or referrals and Support."
Networking creates what she calls social capital. “You build financial capital by saving money, and you build social capital by meeting people and forming relationships. What you’re looking for are knob-turners, people who can open doors for you. As people build social capital, they get more knob-turners in their network.”
Breaking The Ice: Part of networking is that you give people an excuse to talk to strangers. Some people do not do well talking to strangers on their own. One effective strategy is “speed networking” where guests find someone new to talk to for three or four minutes. Then a timer goes off, and everyone finds someone else to talk to. “It gets people mingling and meeting people. You get the old-timers and the first-timers all mixed together. You’ll also find some people who connect so well, they don’t want to break up. They’ll go off in a corner, and that’s OK.” http://www.themeetingmagazines.com/index/Default.aspx?tabid=639 |
