‘About Networking’ Transcript

00:00:09:06  Hi everyone! I’ve made a New Year’s resolution for business

00:00:14:15   which was to go to more networking events in 2020.

00:00:19:23   I’m not a huge fan of networking events if I’m honest

00:00:23:23  It feels a little bit like dating, and I am not interested in doing that

00:00:29:11  I feel a little bit uncomfortable talking about our business and what we do

00:00:33:22  with completely random strangers who 9 times out of 10 are not that interested

00:00:38:21   but just waiting for their turn to talk about what their business is and what they do

00:00:42:18  So, I don’t love them, but in my role as MD of Lean Consulting it is part of my job

00:00:48:13  whether I like it or not. I’ve got to go out and generate new business.

00:00:51:15  I’ve got to go to these events. I also feel really uncomfortable

00:00:56:24   just walking up to a random stranger and starting to talk to them

00:01:00:10  and that’s really silly, I know, I do, and I know lots of other people out there

00:01:04:15  have the same problem. I’m quite an outgoing person but I still have that

00:01:09:22   moment of like, what if they don’t want to talk to me and that real feeling

00:01:15:07  of self-consciousness that happens before you initiate a conversation with someone

00:01:19:03  but most of that, if not, all of that is in my head and I just need to get over myself

00:01:24:16  and just go and do it. So, yesterday I went to my first networking event of 2020

00:01:30:10  I survived. It was actually quite a lot of fun. I didn’t have any problem

00:01:35:01   I walked straight up to someone that was standing on their own

00:01:37:12   and it was a morning networking session, so I said

00:01:40:24  “It’s pretty early, did you have to come from far? Did you have to travel far?”

00:01:45:09  and they started talking about where they live and where they work

00:01:48:15  and the conversation just went on really organically

00:01:50:24   and another guy came over and joined and went over and spoke to someone else

00:01:53:22  The whole thing was far more painless than I built it up to be in my head

00:01:59:06   so, I’m looking forward to doing some more networking events this year

00:02:03:13  and hopefully, they’ll go as well as that one did.