It is a myth that just because some people are ‘born networkers’, others are doomed to fail at networking. In my work with hundreds of people, all of whom are individuals with different strengths, challenges, tastes and fears… I have seen that building quality relationships to benefit your business or career is important to and attainable for everyone!
Walking around display stalls, hearing pitches on stage and speaking one-on-one with entrepreneurs, I couldn’t help view it all through my ‘personal branding lens’… and this is where I made some interesting observations.
If you aren’t taking notes in your coffee meetings, you may be missing some big opportunities to connect the dots, make some key observations, build trust and win new business.
When meeting a new contact over coffee, I dislike the question, ‘Tell me about your work.’ If you want to open a great conversation with a new contact, there are better ways to ask about their work.
I’ve been heading to quite a few innovation events recently… and noticed some big gaps in what founders know about personal branding… and how important it is to their start-up’s success!
Yes, there is the joy of connecting and the spirit of sharing and helping… but the bottom line is, we are exploring ways to do business. Have you come across these 3 challenges in coffee conversations?