Business Networking for Success: Part 5 Influence

Since we were children, we were taught not to talk to strangers. That’s it’s dangerous. The best way to meet strangers is to have someone introduce you to people. There’s two ways of doing this. If you’re new to a group, find the group organizer and have them introduce you to a few people. If you already know someone in the group, have them introduce you to a few people they know.

Attitude while networking is important (discussed in Part 4). What if you went to a party where you knew everyone and everyone was your friend? How would you react? How would you introduce yourself? Pretend that everyone you meet at an event is your friend.

In one of the earlier parts, I talked about how someone I met spent a full 30 minutes talking about themselves and had the best conversation ever even though I didn’t say a word. I learned then that people only really like to talk about themselves. So how do you overcome this?

Active listening and redirecting with questions. Listen for clues on things that interest them that might allow you to redirect the conversation.

The world is full of distractions, both external and internal. No one can control all of them at any given moment. Moreover, everybody’s brain is different—in how it works and in the information and experiences it has collected. Thus, what you think you are saying may mean something quite different to someone else—particularly if you start in the middle of a thought, choose a wrong word or speak too quickly.

Two ways to overcome this are repetition and simplicity.

Repeat the main items you want them to hear multiple times.

Keep it simple silly and don’t leave out any of the details.

Never Assume

Don’t judge on appearances. Richest guy in the room can wear jeans and a t-shirt.

Keep an open mind.

Communication

55% Body Language

38% Tonality

7% Words

Do you look/feel confident? Do you exude success? How is your dress. While in the previous section I mentioned never assume anything especially from a person’s look, understand that other people do make assumptions. So be well groomed.

Instant Credibility – Be a Speaker

Networking Credibility – Have a friend introduce you. science tells us that it doesn’t seem to matter if the person who introduces you is not only connected to you but also likely to prosper from the introduction themselves.

Building Credibility Requires Trust + Expertise.

Be the expert and earn the trust

Start with a negative and then make it a positive.

Every negative statement you make about yourself is instantly accepted as a truth.

Positive statements are looked at as dubious at best.

An Avis Ad... We're number 2 (to Hertz). We try harder.

This increased Avis's sales numbers after 13 years of losing money.

The law of Candor must be used with great skill.

First your negative must be widely perceived as a negative.

It has to trigger instant agreement with your prospect's mind.

Next you have to shift quickly into the positive.

The purpose of candor is not to apologize.

The purpose of candor is to set up a benefit that will convince your prospect.

While competing with the good tasking Scope, Listerine said, "The taste you hate twice a day."

This allowed the company to sell the idea that because Listerine tastes like disinfectant, it must kill lots of germs.

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If you learned a lot from this course, check out our other Networking course s in the Resources Section.