It was awful, just awful.
Standing there awkwardly by the coffee stand, trying not to look desperate. Scanning the room for someone else not already in animated conversation. Trying to resist the temptation to reach for the safety of my phone so that I wouldn’t seem so pathetic and lost.
Eventually I spotted someone standing alone and marched over to introduce myself. She was open and engaging and we had a lovely conversation, but our shared interests were minimal. We had just saved each other from 5 minutes of excruciating loneliness in the middle of a busy room, but that was where it ended.
In the next break I forced myself to do the rounds, to go up to those who had been on stage and use my praise of their presentations as a way into a conversation. I was doing ok, had developed my patter about why I was there and was spending less and less time in between conversations with that “I’m not alone, I’m just looking for someone” face on.
Then disaster struck. I started to talk to someone and within a few minutes they simply began to walk away. There was a gesture of ‘goodbye’, but it was pretty minimal. They’d decided I wasn’t worth wasting time on and had voted with their feet. Worse, at first I walked with them, thinking we were just heading towards a seat, until I realised they wanted to be rid of me. Cringe 🫣.
This didn\’t happen years ago when I young and inexperienced, when I didn’t have confidence or felt intimidated by everyone in the room. It was last week.
I’ve written about the power, importance and challenge of networking before and it’s a regular coaching topic for leaders looking to become more effective and more strategic (or to move jobs). I talk about overcoming the fear and just ‘getting out there’, with curiosity as your guaranteed way to connect with just about anyone.
But last week reminded me that it’s much easier said than done. Why was it so much harder this time? Perhaps because I had no status in the room – I had deliberately signed up to attend an event which wasn’t in my zone of work or expertise because I wanted to learn and expand my network. That meant I faltered. I didn’t stride in and own my right to be there, but instead was slightly apologetic when answering that first crucial question of ‘what brings you here?’
As ever, failure teaches more lessons than success, so here\’s my learning from a grim networking experience:
🤓Do your research. Who’s going to be there, what’s on their mind and why might they be interested in talking to you? I noticed that people at my event had two clear goals in mind – they were NGOs and investors looking for partnerships. So I needed to work extra hard to get a conversation going that wasn’t an answer to either of those interests.
🎯Get clear about your goals. The vague ideas in my own mind about why I was at the event last week spilled over into my demeanour and what I said. How will I know this has been a success – number of LinkedIn connections / business cards? What am I really after? I could have put more time into thinking about why I wanted to meet and build relationships with this crowd and what would interest them about my work.
📢 With clarity about your goals and audience, you can decide on your pitch. What’s your opening line? What’s the most important aspect of who you are to highlight to the people you meet? Why should they not just walk away? As the day wore on I think I started to nail it – “I’m here because I’m passionate about working with leaders who want to make a difference in the world, and there are a lot of you in this room”
🐘🐎Be thick-skinned and get back on the horse. You’ll win some and you’ll lose some. It’s not personal – everyone in the room is on the look out for something and maybe you’re not it. Take a deep breath and keep circulating. And make sure the last conversation you have is a good one. (After that humiliating moment last week, I started to head for the door, but just as I did someone came over and introduced themselves and it turned out we had a connection in common. It was such a relief to leave on a high, instead of a fail).
🎈Congratulate yourself. I wonder if there is anyone out there who really enjoys networking (maybe only if it’s their event and they have a lot of status in the room, perhaps). So when you do it, be proud and maybe even treat yourself afterwards. When I told my war story to my husband later that day he said ‘you’re amazing, I don’t know how you do it’. That was nice 🤗.
🆘My last suggestion is for the event organisers: what can you do to make this easier and better for your guests? Name tags are a good start, even better if there’s some kind of invitation on the tag like ‘talk to me about…’. Other structured approaches, like setting up themed corners or giving the audience a task to fulfil during the break also help people break the ice and find the connections they want to make.
What has your worst networking experience been and what did you learn?
