How to spice up your networking

Recently I attended a biznik event where MJ Cherkauer and Teresa Rodden presented an interesting approach to networking. Instead of just offering the usual elevator speech they asked participants to ask questions such as: “If your business was a color, what color would it be?” or “What street in your city most resembles your business?” Now these questions are admittedly a littler colorful, but they are also useful questions because they get you to consider your business from a new light.

For example, I was asked the second question I mentioned above. I decided to describe my business in terms of how it could help someone navigate busiest traffic on on a very busy street. When people heard that, they got a lot out of it, and they felt like they had a better understanding of how my business could help them or someone they knew.

The benefit of getting creative in telling people what it is we do is that we can tell people in terms they can understand. One of the biggest challenges businesses face is the ability to tell people what it is they do in a manner that makes sense to those people. Using some creativity and getting a bit descriptive can tell people about your business from an angle they haven’t considered before.

You can also ask other people creative questions to help them describe their business in a different way than they usually would. Not only will it help you learn more about them, but it’ll challenge them to think differently about how they describe their business.

Networking is an activity all businesses and many professionals need to do, but we should take it upon ourselves to get creative about it. And we should also take it on ourselves to learn more about the person beyond what s/he does, because in doing so we get a better feel for his/her personality and can then think of people who fit him/her well.

Networking doesn’t have to be boring. It can be an exciting activity, if we are willing to spice it up. I knowing spicing it up the way MJ and Teresa recommended has been useful for me to do.

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Hi Jason,

I agree anything that makes you think definitely breaks that autopilot. Good point.

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Jason

There was a young man on a talent show that saw music in colour as he played the piano. I was captivated trying to imagine what it looked like. It made me think and anything that makes a networker think gets them off auto pilot. If you are able to make people think it will help you build a strong personal brand whilst networking.

Thanks for sharing.

@jasoncobine

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