Networking Innovations for Tech Leaders

Do you know how strong your networking skills are? You can easily find many tips to improve your networking skills, but there is a significant flaw with them. They mostly focus on technique and not on mindset. Before we attempt any networking innovations, let’s see what tips you commonly find. Some of the typical tips you come across are:

Ask many questions
Follow up quickly with those who can benefit from you
Be clear about your goals

No doubt, all the tips have the best intention: they want to help you get better at creating a connection.

Here’s where these tips are fundamentally flawed: they look at the relationship mainly from your perspective. The problem is that once the other person notices that it’s all about you, they may lose interest in the conversation and you. Self-focus reduces our ability to create strong connections.

The way to get excellent with networking is to make it about the other person. Give the other person the experience that even this short interaction is about them.

Here are three simple and powerful tips for networking innovations and to help you shift the focus to the other person:

Make a statement about the other person or about what they said

Here is what we frequently hear about questions: asking questions shows that we’re interested. Asking questions allows the other person to say more about what they do, and it puts us in the role of the listener.

All of this is only partly true. The reality is that we can ask questions without listening. We can fake listening by not talking. We can fake interest by smiling and nodding.

What we cannot fake is actively demonstrating that we have been listening.

One way to do this is by paraphrasing what we have heard. “What I heard you say is…” or “If I got it right, you…”
Another way to demonstrate listening is by sharing our interpretation of what we heard, “It sounds to me…”

Asking questions is a good start. Making statements about what the other person said is stronger in demonstrating interest.

Make a connection with someone else

Approach every networking conversation with the intent to connect the person with someone else in your network. Think of someone you know so that both may benefit from a mutual introduction. Don’t ask yourself what you gain from making the introductions. Don’t think in terms of accruing favors or paying something back. Instead, think of the benefit the others might get from being connected. Focusing on making connections between other people puts your focus in the back of your mind. It frees up your mind to focus on others, and the result is that you come across as less self-centered.

Introduce yourself not with a label but with the value you add

Most of us introduce ourselves by using a professional “label” or a title. We introduce ourselves as “I am a data scientist,” “I am the CFO of XYZ corp,” or “I am a business development consultant.” This introduction limits how others see us (and it’s a bit of a lazy introduction).

The introduction before the transformation

When my younger son Alex started Taekwondo many years ago, he joined a relatively new program in our area. The teacher was Master Sharma. After a few sessions, Master Sharma and I started to talk more and more after the classes, and he shared a bit about his business. He told me that he’s going to local networking meetings, making calls to schools, and sending out flyers. However, he does not see the business he’d like to see. I asked him, “How do you introduce what you do,” and he said, “I am a Taekwondo instructor.”

The problem with that introduction is that the market for Taekwondo instructors is always pretty limited. Ask yourself this: are you – or do you know someone who is – in the market for a Taekwondo instructor? Probably not. I told him about the work I do and how I help clients position themselves.

The introduction after the transformation

Today, when you meet Master Sharma and ask him what he does, this is what he would say: “You know, kids today are full of energy. They’re bouncing off the walls, they’re always hyper, and we as parents don’t really know how to drain their energy. What I do is to pick up your kids from school or home, I take them to my dojo, I get them physically exhausted, and return them tired, drained, and quiet. And in the process, they learn self-respect, discipline, and confidence”.

Now, are you – or do you know someone who is – in the market for a Taekwondo instructor?

When I share this story with an audience, I ask them after each introduction to raise their hands if they are in the market for a Taekwondo instructor. Even with an audience of 500, I get a maximum of three hands up. After the second introduction, usually almost half the audience raises their hands.

By changing the language of the introduction, you can dramatically increase the market size. Why does this work: because the second introduction focuses on the benefit for the other person instead of merely sharing the label we have for ourselves.

Do you have the second kind of introduction prepared for yourself?

Take The Next Step – Networking Innovations

Go to a networking group that you haven’t visited yet. Use the opportunity to put your networking innovations into practice. Make the conversation fully about the other person.