Required People skills

If you are going to take networking seriously and you would like to improve your chances of success, you will need to develop a number of core people skills. You will need to learn how to be a great host, how to network effectively when working a room, how to turn a social situation into a business opportunity, how to handle face-to-face communications, meetings and presentations, and finally how to stay in touch by using e-mail, voice-mail and the good old fashioned telephone or the more preferred salesman’s tool, the cell-phone.

When you meet someone in conversation for the first time you will often make an impression on them that is either to your advantage or to your detriment. If you make no impression at all, this is seen as having made a bad impression. Depending on the impression you wish to make, you might behave, dress or even speak in a different way from how you would typically. Sometimes this may even make you feel uncomfortable. By default, I’ll assume that the usual choice that you would wish to make is to make a good impression and certainly a lasting impression. This is necessary if you want to establish a long lasting personal or business relationship with someone.

By way of drawing an analogy, let us assume you are trying to impress a potential love partner. Your approach to this person, if you are to be successful, will be very different from the approach that you would use with someone that didn't interest you at all. In fact your approach to the potential love partner would require a certain amount of effort on your part if you wanted to attain some form of long-term success. You would possibly first think of something intelligent to say to stimulate a conversation and to make your love-target think that you are interesting and that you might be fun to have around. You would surely also make sure that outwardly you are able to project the right impression. Shoulders back, head up, chest out, tummy in, attitude adjustment and finally approach! You would be using all the right body language that says “look at me, I’ve got confidence, I’m fun to have around, you should feel pleased that I’ve chosen to spend time with you”.

On the other hand, if you are trying to avoid having a conversation with someone, you might become internally disagreeable and outwardly unapproachable thereby ensuring that you get left alone. Your body language might also re-inforce your displeasure if you fold your arms in a bored fashion and start scanning the room for someone more interesting to talk to. Ever been caught in a one sided conversation with someone as boring as a 300 km straight drive through the Karoo desert? Simply disagree with any point they make, and you’ll see how quickly they will go away…