As a Speech & Language Therapist I earn my crust from talking so you'd expect a networking event to be right up my street. Arriving at SBS at 10.30 with my 'plus one' and seeing the sheer numbe of people I actually found myself speechless. My first ever networking event had breifly silenced me and I must say that's a first!
Fast-forward 15 minutes and Lisandros (my plus one) had taught me some simple networking rules:
– People by themselves are craving to be spoken to.
– Pairs facing eachother are 'closed' to new people entering their conversation.
– Pairs and groups standing adjacent to eachtother are 'open' to new people.
We both considered this advice and decided to launch ourselves into a conversation with a pair of people who were facing eachother with the hope they hadn't read 'the networking bible'. Thankfully they hadn't and in fact seemed happy for us to entertain them and exchange stories on the 'do's and don't' of service businesses.
Seven hours later and I can comfortably call myself a 'networking veteran' (yes, after one single event!) and I cannot wait for my next.
