Networking has become a crucial aspect to marketing in today’s world and the sheer volume of people you can interact with in a day is staggering. Learning to take the menial, daily interactions and turn them into business prospects is a skill that takes time to develop. Are you destroying your chances with potential clients by making common mistakes because of your personality? Before you answer, take a moment to hear these suggestions out because you may not even realize you’re doing them at all.
Take communication skills and communication sense. These may sound like one of the same thing but they are in fact not. In fact, one lays the foundation for the other. Communication skills are the underlying structure that is necessary to develop communication sense. Using simple language can be a great place to start because people’s minds will turn off if you are bombarding them with too much jargon. Taking your time to speak gives people a better chance of following along and giving them a chance to respond will go a long ways, especially towards building a relationship.
Another common mistake is rushing. Don’t rush, there’s no need. They will either hear what you have to say or they won’t but reciting a rushed sales pitch is a great way to shut them down. Last but not least, take your time to target and spot opportunities. A well trained intuition will spot unadvertised, unpublicized opportunities. Let your personality work for you and not against you but do not expect to improve overnight.
Avoid the jargon – the low hanging fruit and thinking outside the box rubbish. It may have sounded good once but now days people switch off when somebody launces into a presentation etc using such stuff. Speak simply and slowly to ensure your audience stays engaged.
Steve Blythe (Recruitment and Social Media Commentator).