The Tao Of Networking II: building relationships during an event
making friends to do business, and doing business to make more friends
These method got me very close with people like Dave McClure the CEO of 500Startups, Thomas Andrae the Director of 3M new ventures, David Marcus the president at Paypal.
Here is the general Blueprint that I will be detailing step by step. For the genius of you, they can pick up only these simple heuristics:
1 — When approaching a speaker or VIP:
Don’t Ask For Money, Partnership, or a Job
Don’t Pitch*
Don’t Talk about your idea/project/profession
talking only about your technical stuff (even if you are in finance, its called technical). The speaker or the potential investor/partner is overflowed during that event, and during his path with this information noise. You will be also noise in his ears. (unless you invented theOcculus Rift and you are calling him for a Demo)
Your Goal is not to showcase yourself, your goal is to make a friend with that person. Your Goal is to become good friends, why not best friends, you should break the social barriers with that person, all the masks, all the anti-walls.
Ask Questions like:
Excuse me Sir, I’m a big fan of yours, and I would like your opinion on a special matter. I’m getting married currently, and launching a startup at the same time? what can of troubles you think I can avoid*
your guest will burst into laughter for a second, and he will start getting intimate in his advice.
the question you will ask is just an opener, then use that to jump to personal level discussions, life souvenirs, family names, etc. You will be astonished how much level you will get more intimate with the speaker, especially if you go with further questions (that you can use also as opener) such as:
What are the mistakes you made that you regret, that you don’t want anyone to fall trap for, and how can I avoid them or spot them?
What is your purpose of life? why do you woke up every morning?
What is so special about what you do? and why wouldn’t you change it for anything else?
Look curious, interested and be mostly “Open” Talk about your personal opinions, your memories, be as much open as possible, the other person will friend you.
If you start then talking in the thread of the discussion about your project or your work
Start talking about what makes you passionate, your vision, how it relates to your life, how it relates to the world. rather than talking about technicalities.
2 — The Finish line:
Don’t Exchanging business cards: business cards break the relation, and makes it “superficial”
Do Exchange phone numbers: give the other person your phone to type their contact information.
Call for Action/ Call for Followup: you would rather have a specific date or request to ask at the end, so you can follow up and meet with the person after the event. if you let it unspecified, you will end up never meeting again
How to keep in touch after event?
Note: this post is in progress, please be patient ☺
Don’t send emails emails are boggy and lengthy and time wasters.
Do send SMSs to keep the relationship real, and you have high chance the other person reads you and replies to you.
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