Mandatory tips for Networking — that applies to literally anyone, anytime

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017 Dharaneetharan Durairajan 1 COMMUNICATION SKILLS, INTERPERSONAL SKILLS, NETWORKING, NETWORKING SKILLS, PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING, PROFESSIONAL SKILL, ROBIN SHARMA, STARTUP

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As an introvert, who had too much of shyness and with lot of inferiority complex I was heading nowhere. I had to come out of the shell and it all happened due to the habit of reading. Some where in Feb 2010, I bought this book named The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma. One idea can change your entire life and I got that from this book.

Networking — *Img Credit : shutterstock*

Here is the excerpt from the book, (Page 3 & 4)

I was downtown at the Four Seasons in Toronto, in the lobby getting ready for speech I was about to give to a company called Advanced Medical Optics, which is a long-standing leadership coaching clients of ours and an impressive organization. I look up and guess who I see? Harvey Keitel . Yes , the Harvey “Reservoir Dogs Big Movie Star” Keitel. And what does the man who wrote The Monk who sold his Ferrari do? I shrink from greatness.

I don’t know why I didn’t stand up and walk over and make a new friend. I’ve done it with baseball legend Pete Rose at the Chicago airport (we ended up sitting next to each other all the way to Phoenix). I did it last month with Henry Kravis, one of the planet’s top financiers in the lobby of a hotel in Rome (I was with my kids and Colby thought he was cool).

I did it Senator Edward Kennedy when I saw him in Boston. I even did it with guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen when I was a kid growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. But I missed the chance to connect with Harvey Keitel.

Each day, life will send you little windows of opportunity. Our destiny is ultimately defined by how we respond to these windows of opportunity. Shrink from them and your life will be small. Feel the fear and run to them anyway, and your life will be large.

This simple thought changed the way.

I decided to come out of Shell. Here are the steps that I followed there after.

Registered for various Events:

Registered to most of the events that happened at my locality irrespective of the theme.

Designed My Visiting Card:

Easiest tool that will help you meet anybody. More than the information it has, I considered it as an entry to talk to new people, breaking my barriers. I decided to meet and talk to anyone who delivered lectures on stage. Yes, it worked out well.

Research:

After attending few events, I can see the progress and the fear in me has gone. Now my mind has started thinking about the need and effectiveness. So from there on, whichever conference/event I registered, started to do some minimal research on the speakers. Understood the theme of the conference, followed the speakers in their social profile, esp. linkedin, facebook and twitter and got to know about their background and experience.

Boldly Connect:

Since, I have done my research, this time, I had content to talk, share and I had genuine questions to ask to the speakers. I listened to the topics of my interest and started taking notes. Once the conference got over, I documented the learning in social media and thanked the guests by tagging them for the knowledge shared. The knowledge I gathered was now useful for other friends who were part of my network.

Add Value:

Now, since I have got the cards exchanged I had their numbers stored in my mobile and made a point to send personalized thanks message as text and in few cases as mails. Sending mails as soon as the conference gets over, is always a good practice. The advantage is, you give a chance for the other party to search for you in their mailbox, if there is requirement of your service in a later date. Also, whenever I read articles, I made it a point to share that to the people who belonged to that particular domain. By now, most of the people who I got connected have already responded to my mails and text messages.

Fix up an Appointment:

Brian Tracy says, If you want #success, do what successful people do. To understand more about the successful habits of achievers, I developed the courage to ask people , their appointment. Here is one such sample.

Once I crossed this stage, networking was like a cakewalk to me. I genuinely started to ask more questions, started implementing the success formula and continued to maintain the relationship.

Researchers estimate extroverts make up 50–74 percent of the population. I have traveled a long distance to move from one extreme to the other. It took 4 long years, to break the pattern, mindset and to get the design right. From there on, every meeting ends like this !! Yes with a selfie and in few cases a nice photo.

Please Read This:

Conversation With : Sampad Swain is the Founder and CEO of Instamojo

Disclaimer: This is an Contributor post from Dharaneetharan ( Co-founder of TelePort360) . The statements, opinions and data contained in these publications are solely those of the contributors and not of TamilEntrepreneur.com.