You're Pitching to Strangers and Calling It Networking

Most people show up to networking events and immediately start talking about themselves — and wonder why nothing comes of it. The problem isn't your industry or your title. It's that you're leading with a brochure instead of a conversation. In this episode, JP breaks down the real reason networking falls flat and what to do instead — starting with your next event.

Transcript

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Welcome to Lee with Confidence. I'm JP Warren. Every episode we take a theme from our Monday morning leadership call and apply it to real life scenarios. So you can build your confidence, crush your imposter syndrome, and step into the leader you actually want to be. Short, real, straight to the point. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Lead with Confidence with your host, JP Warren. Thank you for tuning in today. And if you are new to this podcast, we are doing uh soft skills development, 10 minutes or less. And why is it so important? Because soft skills are 85% of our career success. That's why I love helping people kind of strengthen, develop their soft skills and their ability to communicate, influence, and connect with people. And that's what we're gonna be talking about this entire week is your ability to connect with people at networking events and how to actually do that effectively. And hey, listen, if I'm giving you 10 minutes of this time, I would love for 15 seconds for you to stop, go over, leave a review. It helps kind of get the word out there and share it with others and also share it with other people that you may who might need this kind of information to kind of help them in their careers. So today I'm all about talking about whenever you're at a networking event, stop pitching to strangers. Okay, you're already gonna lose them when you start pitching. So what does that mean? What usually happens? Um that so I'm I'm I'm gonna try to actually condense this from less than 10 minutes to like less than seven minutes, uh, if I don't continue to ramble. Just because I've heard these over and over, I would I think I get more impactful with a message. And again, soft skills is a skill set to be learned, practiced, and mastered. And I'm still practicing mine. So what happens when you go to networking events historically? Historically, people go in and they, when they meet someone, they start just kind of pitching. They start telling about what they do, they start dumping their brochure on them and their features. And what happens? You get forgettable. You people disconnect from you. People really don't care at the end of the day. I'm not being rude, but if you don't have the, if you don't earn the space for having that, uh building that bridge, then people are gonna disengage with you. So, how do we actually get better conversations or dive into better networking conversations at these types of events? All right. So again, I kind of wrote a couple notes down on me kind of going off of. So a lot oftentimes that we're trying, we're often trained, like when you go to networking events, you go in in there and sell. And I covered actually how to have better small talk uh at previous um episodes before. So pretty much when you go to networking events, you don't go in there just to sell or kind of talk about yourself, because at the end of the day, you're trying to connect with other people. And whenever you're talking to other people, I often, this is something I've learned throughout my career, ask them questions. That way you're not thinking constantly, okay, well, what story can I top this or how can I showcase my experience that meets with this? If you're the one asking questions and then the one talking about themselves, they're gonna walk away from the conversations. Number one, remembering you, they're gonna be thinking, man, that was a good conversation. But number two, they're gonna enjoy the conversation because scientifically speaking, people enjoy talking about themselves. So if you can get them talking about themselves, you're gonna learn so much more about this person. And it's just gonna help you throughout your relationship with them, but also with your follow-up after the networking event's over. All right. So don't be forgettable. So, how do we not be forgettable at these networking events? Okay. And here's kind of four ways to do this. Number one, drop the script, drop the brochure, stop dropping features, what you do, where you're located, who you help, and all that stuff. Okay. That is such a feature dump, and people often disengage from that and you sound like everyone else. And you know what else happens? This is one of those things where it's like, it's it's so easy to put yourself in other people's shoes, right? Once you start pitching to people, or once you're pitched to, what happens? Your walls go up. You're thinking, okay, well, when's this conversation gonna end so I can move on to the next one? So again, drop the brochure. Stop listening to your titles, stop listening to what you do. Just kind of you're meeting someone for the first time. All right, take the pressure out of it, okay? And you know what I've noticed also at networking events? Whenever I am talking to someone, I've often noticed that the people that are that command the most respect, you know, um, often they're kind of mysterious. You don't know what they do. Um, they might be a CEO of a company, but they're not introducing themselves as a CEO, right? So add a little mystery to this, okay, to your introduction, okay? And the second thing you can do is ask a real question, not how's it going, what do you do, or anything like that. Those are conversation kills. We talked about that in previous episodes, but come in with a question and an easy question you can ask with, make it relatable to the event you're at. Um, whether it's, hey, is it your first time here? Have you seen us this speaker before? What are you trying to get out of here? What's the best event you've gone to uh in this, you know, this organization that you've really enjoyed the most? Just dive into that to learn more about what they're trying to get out of this event. You start learning about their interests and their wants, their needs, what they, why they actually come to these events, you're gonna learn a lot more about that individual, okay? And the third step is, and then we talked about this earlier, is actively listen. Listening is probably one of the most crucial skills of communication, right? Oh, I do listen. I do. Oftentimes, what happens when we are, quote, listening, we're thinking about what to say next, right? How do I match this person's story? Oh, they just took this trip to South America. Well, have you ever tried the salsa in Peru, right? Like you start start trying to match their stories or their experiences. And next thing you know, you're not really listening. You're just trying to one up them or just kind of meet them kind of where they are. The best thing you can do is literally just open up and start listening to them actively or intentionally, right? So this is when you kind of like dive into kind of what they're talking about and start asking questions that you're curious about, that you would be interested about if this was a friend that you're talking to, okay? So shift it from a just a okay, I have some set questions to more of a curiosity-driven questions, okay? And the fourth thing you have to do is earn the right to follow up, earn the right to continue that conversation. So again, if they're talking about that event, okay, and let's say this person's talking about AI in this industry, right? Or AI in the energy industry, right? And you just heard a great podcast, you read a great book, or you discovered someone on LinkedIn worth following that talks about this, right? It's okay to share them at. Or I don't know why, okay, so Riverside gives it a thumbs up. I hate when it does the emojis. Anyway, I'm kind of going off. If you're listening to this on the Apple Pods off, I also have a YouTube channel, and also you can find some clips of this on uh Instagram at Leewithconfidence JP Warren. All right, so anyway, getting back to back on track. So let's say they're talking about their kids, uh a sports team, right? Or maybe it's uh there something's wrong with their car and it's in the shop and all stuff. Earn the right to follow up. Hey, listen, this is a great mechanic that have a lot of friends in your neighborhood that that utilize. Try that, or this is that sports organization that your kid could probably get some more strength in the conditioning outside of their league. So earn the right to follow up. And you can only earn that right if you're actively listening to them and you're engaging with them, okay? So this is what I want you to do. The next time you walk into a networking event, number one, ditch the script. Number two, have a question or two in your back pocket that you can ask them away from the how are you or what do you do for work type of questions, okay? And earn that right to follow up. So when you are talking, listen to them, right? Listen to what they're doing in their time off or what they do when they're not at the office. You can engage much more, learn more about them so your follow-up is that much more easy. All right. So that is what we have on uh today's episode of Lead With Confidence. This is just tips to get you in that room, to have you start kind of uh positioning yourself differently than everyone else in that room, so you can actually be to create a memorable connection. Not only that, you can actually follow up and make it more enjoyable. So remember, if you don't know what to say, that's okay. Just ask them questions about what's going on in the world. We talked about having building your network and kind of like having conversations, kind of like the book report method. And if you're interested in that, just check out previous uh an episode on that we talked about, but lead with curiosity, right? And again, don't rush us. There's no, you're not trying to close a deal at a networking event. All you're trying to do is create these connections where you can kind of talk about whether it's business, personal stuff, or anything outside of the networking event. So go out there, have fun with it, okay? And again, it's a skill set can be learned, practiced, and mastered. And I want you to practice this, okay? So thank you for tuning in for Lead with Confidence. Feel free to like, share, and all that fun stuff and uh find us on uh Instagram and YouTube. Um but I appreciate you being here, and uh, we'll see you next time. If I can close this out. There we go. That's your framework for the day. Go lead with it. I'm JP Warren, lead with confidence.