Friday, April 30th, 2010
at 2:06pm
Last night I did a presentation at the PYO Gallery in the South Park area of Downtown LA on “The Art of Connecting.” I employed concepts from the art world like perspective, shading (shades of meaning), setting, style, and taste to networking. It was the first time I have given such a presentation, and it was very well received. I discussed the importance of building a strong personal relationship prior to trying to build a business relationship. The gallery is relatively small, and had the works of one artist, but it had a the feeling of spaciousness. I collaborated with the jeweler Claudia Endler and gallery owner Heidi Chang. Connecting really is an art, and you need to be versatile and open-minded in order to connect with a wide variety of people. There is no substitute for being a genuinely interested listener, and also to be interesting when you are speaking. We all have different communication styles: some are story tellers, while others focus on the reporting of events without much detail. In my presentation, I emphasized the importance of follow-up in networking, and that it sometimes takes a long time for a fruitful relationship to develop. You need to develop some type of personal connection with others beyond business topics. In all, the goal was to bring together people from widely diverse worlds and find a common ground. By providing a warm and welcoming environment with free appetizers and drinks, we had a high level of success. Not only did we have our invited guests, but a number of people who were walking around in the area came in and were interested in the topic.
Friday, July 10th, 2009
at 1:00am
When you are talking to others, whether in a formal networking context or not, you will find things in common with them. It could be where you went to school, your ethnicity, playing a particular sport or game, having children the same age, or virtually anything. In order to make connections you need to capitalize on common experiences, interests, and skills. For example, if you find out that someone attended the same university as you did, you could say “Oh, I went there also.” If the other person shows excitement about this shared experience then you can ask pertinent questions to determine if the commonalities run deeper such as having the same professors or major. If you find out that there is strong common ground then you can discuss it more and expand the connection. You do have to be careful because not everyone has an equal degree of connection to or affinity for their past. I went to UCLA and received two degrees from there. In addition, I am deeply involved in Bruin Professionals as a charter member, on the Board of Directors, Speaker Chair for a chapter, and probably attend as many or more meetings at the various chapters than any other member.
So when I meet someone who went to UCLA, I express genuine interest and excitement and often invite them to Bruin Professionals meetings or events. They may or may not share my degree of connection to UCLA. Commonalities serve as an opener, and if we want to connect we need to jump on them and use them as a means to deepen our connections.
There are countless ways we can find a common ground. Sometimes we find them accidentally and other times we might learn something about someone and then bring up the topic. The goal is to find the possible synergy and to “click” with others. George Fraser (2008) utilizes the concept of “clicking” to describe the essence of networking and building productive relationships in his aptly named book Click. .
Here are some examples of possible topics of potential commonality we can connect and click with others:
• Children
• Animals
• Gardening
• Games/Sports
• Travel
• Films
• Music
• Current Events
• Schools
• T.V. Shows
• Regions of Birth
• Neighborhoods
• Age
• Food
• Foreign Language
• Books
• People in Common
• Birth Order
• Fraternal Organizations
• Religion
• Politics
• Hobbies
• Retirement
• How We Spend Time
• Investments
The important thing is not necessarily YOUR interest in any of the above topics, but finding common ground and others’ interest in them. For example, you might be very focused on retirement but the thirty year old to whom you are speaking is probably not. The more versatile you are in the range of discussion topics with which you are comfortable, the more potential people you can reach.
