You Know What You Know...

Many networkers have tendency to want to talk a lot when they meet someone new. Maybe they’re not certain that they’ll get another chance so they “throw up” on the new connection. They describe their product, expertise, market position, and so on without taking a breath.

The challenge is that we’re not learning when we’re talking. To make matters worse, the person who we've just dumped our life story on tuned us out and completely discounted us not long after we started so we didn't gain any ground with our dissertation.

Our singular goal at events is to figure out who we should meet with one-on-one after the event. To do that, we must spend a lot more time listening than talking. We need to have an ability to ask good questions and a passion to hear other people’s stories.

The simple rule of thumb when you meet someone new is...you know what you know; good networkers learn what other people know.