How To Network When You Hate Networking
In the business market, networking is a powerful tool to reach the levels of entrepreneurship excellence in the sea of neck-to-neck competitions. However, networking can prove to be a cumbersome task given its unpredictability towards unbridled success and the strenuous amount of socializing an individual needs to go through to form a web of connections.
Nevertheless, the unwavering success story of networking paints a positive picture. For example, 79% of professionals attest that successful careers begin with networking. Along with that, about 85% of jobs in the U.S. are filled via networking.
Being fed up or nervous about the process is inevitable, given the amount of healthy competition in the field. However, some small tricks and tips can get you through networking even when you hate it.
For the sake of easy understanding, this article has been divided into the following sections:
- What is Networking and How does it Help Businesses?
- Networking: Some Clear-Cut Benefits
- Inventing New Ideas through Networking
- Make Yourself Known through Networking
- Gain an Alternative Perspective through Networking
- Get Career Advice and Build Confidence with Networking
- Networking: Why It Is Difficult To Handle
- You Have Not Established A Single Network Yet
- Networking When You Are An Introvert
- 5 Ways To Network Professionally When You Loathe Networking
- Conduct Your Research Well
- First Impression is the Last Impression
- Listen More Than You Speak
- Don’t Try To Be Omnipotent
- Actions Speak Louder Than Words
- Bottom Line
- Key Takeaways
What is Networking and How does it Help Businesses?
The concept of networking surrounds building professional relationships with individuals who share similar interests in the field.
It includes meeting at a common point where you exchange ideas and motivations to aid in the progression of businesses. About 79% of Americans believe that networking plays a crucial role in their career progress.
It takes place in a casual business setup at a workplace or otherwise, which is specifically meant for the cause of networking. The sole motive of building business connections is what sets such events apart from casual ones.
While most people believe that networking is just a means to fish out your next job opportunity, it is far from that. Instead, what it does is build new and refined connections that ultimately swing open a locked door of job opportunities and a more defined balance in the business market.
Through networking, you can generate positive word of mouth from others, so people get to learn about your business and the morals through which you run it.
Invariably, cementing such a relationship with crucial stakeholders in the business can amplify your chances of securing a good position in a renowned company that one can only dream about.
Networking: Some Clear-Cut Benefits
Apart from understanding how networking affects your business by building strong connections, there are some clear cut benefits of adapting networking as a progress strategy for your business:
Inventing New Ideas through Networking
There may be finite points in your career or life where you are confused about how you can proceed from a mind-block when it comes to progressing your business.
Networking provides momentum for your thoughts to enjoy new challenges and accept new ideas through sharing and receiving insights in a professional conversation.
Any point of a new idea can arise out of a professional conversation through networking. Thus, feel free to contact a trusted individual who knows about your business and ask them for assistance. It will do you more good than harm.
Make Yourself Known through Networking
Also called raising your profile, networking can help in making people aware of your work, morals, and business ethics so they may draw inspiration from you and communicate your business prospects to other important stakeholders in the room.
The power of a networking conference is unbridled. You may never comprehend how successful an individual in the room is until you speak to him. Communicating your ethics and business integrity through him can instantly alleviate your profile in the job and business market(given that you can impress him during the duration of the conversation).
Gain an Alternative Perspective through Networking
A single business strategy may not be the answer to all your queries. There have been definitive instances when a single perspective that may have been viewed as definitive by an entrepreneur did not facilitate the anticipated growth in the business.
In such cases, an alternative perspective was always the answer. So how did this alternative perspective come across? Networking!
Networking offers a foreground for entrepreneurs to chat about the shortcomings they are facing with a particular strategy. Through these conversations, an unknown alternative perspective may stem out and offer the much-anticipated breakthrough yearned by the entrepreneur.
Successful networking can resolve unbridled business dilemmas.
Get Career Advice and Build Confidence with Networking
Through deep conversations in networking, you can open up a stream of guidelines and advice to run your career through the power of networking.
Sharing problems and challenges through professional conversations in a comfortable setup will help you to build important and everlasting connections with the important people in business.
The life and career advice you get from them is monumental to your career growth.
By engaging more and more in deeper conversations and life-changing ideas, you can slowly build up your confidence when it comes to heading a meeting or expressing a business strategy.
Regular and formal conversations with crucial stakeholders aid you in grasping the business language and accelerate your fluency in it.
Networking: Why It Is Difficult To Handle
You Have Not Established A Single Network Yet
It is discouraging when you find out that you still haven’t gained a single network yet and your colleagues are making strides. It is even worse when you don’t have a job, and you have to start the networking game from scratch.
Performance anxiety and nervousness are common while you are trying to make your first connection, but your emotions may override your conversations.
The first act of networking requires a lot of courage and determination to walk up to an important person and strike a conversation.
Networking When You Are An Introvert
Introverts have it worse when it comes to networking. The very thought of cramping up people in a small setting or gathering, eating, and continuously replying and asking questions can be a cumbersome task for an introvert who is only comfortable curling up under the sheets in their bedroom.
They shudder at the thought of social pressure upon them to continuously make eye contact with people in the room and strike conversations with them, and also speak about their careers and motives in life.
5 Ways To Network Professionally When You Loathe Networking
The fact that networking is a Herculean task in businesses is known to everyone. However, business-savvy entrepreneurs understand how crucial it is to develop a healthy networking web in the business world, so here are some hacks they follow to network when they hate networking:
Conduct Your Research Well
Almost like walking into a battlefield unprepared, networking is only successful when you approach the right person at the right time. Someone else may have spotted him/her first before you even knew he was a person of importance.
For this reason, you must always research the place or the event you will visit, the most important people who are scheduled to turn up there, and it wouldn’t hurt to take a mild sneak peek into their business background.
The intensity of your research will prove how hooked you can get the person onto your insights.
A networking event will always have important individuals in it, so never fall short on the research before you approach them.
First Impression is the Last Impression
A popular saying that is applicable in all aspects of life, creating a lasting first impression will create the most favorable opportunities for you. It is not wise if you are overconfident about who or what you are going to face at the networking event.
Thus, to play it safe, rehearse what you will say when you meet the important person. Curate a few ice-breakers that will create an interesting hold on your conversation. For example, you can ask things like,
“ This is such an overwhelming gathering. Have you met anyone who caught your attention?”
Or
“ Hi, I’m from New Jersey! What brings you here?”
After you break the ice, it will get smoother and easier to have a continuous and fruitful conversation with them.
Listen More Than You Speak
People like to be heard more than they like to hear. If you try to strike a conversation with an individual who is more experienced than you are, the chances are that they would want to be heard more than they would like you to speak.
So, listen to what they have to say and answer when they ask you a question or if you want to ask them a question.
Networking brings you close to people who have crucial insights into how they go about their business or how they built an empire. You will get more information through listening rather than boasting about yourself.
Don’t Try To Be Omnipotent
Omnipotence in networking is not wise unless you are God and can handle all the stress it comes with.
Emphasize your research on finding out the most beneficial events and choose networking around a selective few. You must always judge your networking progress based on quality and not quantity.
It is better to have a close-knit group of trusted entrepreneurs rather than scattered clusters of disloyal businessmen.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
While attending a networking event, boasting is something you must leave at the door before entering the scene.
Don’t speak about the greatness of your virtues and business morals. People of importance at that event are more likely to be enticed by your behavioral conduct, personality, and speech rather than hear you boast about yourself for the duration of the engagement.
Bottom Line
Thus, while networking can be a difficult task to undertake, especially considering the necktied competition and crowd, the idea is to keep a calm mind, keep your personality intact, and have a good time at the end of the day.
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Key Takeaways
- The concept of networking surrounds building professional relationships with individuals who share similar interests in the field
- Through networking, you can generate positive word of mouth from others, so people get to learn about your business and the morals through which you run it
- Networking provides momentum for your thoughts to enjoy new challenges and accept new ideas through sharing and receiving insights in a professional conversation
- Networking offers a foreground for entrepreneurs to chat about the shortcomings they are facing with a particular strategy
- Introverts have it worse when it comes to networking
- A networking event will always have important individuals in it, so never fall short on the research before you approach them
- Omnipotence in networking is not wise unless you are God and can handle all the stress it comes with