Networking Is Presenting

Submitted by: , co-founder/curriculum designer

When my partner and I launched our business in 2001, we had no budget to market or advertise, so we threw ourselves at networking with gusto. We went to as many functions as we could with an intention to sell our little hearts out. 

We immediately came to recognize that we had no idea what we were doing. It was painful and messy and awful. And our lame results were an excellent indicator of the quality of our efforts. 

So we had to take a step back and rethink. And, as so many answers our found, we discovered one right in our own back yard. Actually, it was staring us in the face. We just had to look, and there it was. 

To explain, I need to give you a little background of what my company does. SagePresence is a partnership of a couple filmmakers who help business professionals present with greater impact. When we started, all we thought we knew had to do with winning over audiences in high-impact presentations. 

So when we looked for an answer to our networking woes, what we saw was an amazingly effective technology around winning over audience in high-impact presentations. We compared networking to presenting, and we immediately saw that they were the same thing, and the answers to one are the answers to the other. Check this out:

The same is true for networking. Networking isn't selling, it's an opportunity to help people. It's great if we can help them with our product and services, but we don't want to limit ourselves to that. We simply want to find out what they want and need so that we can connect them to people we know who can help them get closer to those things they want and need. (When we recognized this, we realized, This is why they call it networking! It's OUR network we're bringing to the mix!) 

Networking often brings the same kind of butterflies that public speaking does -- it least it does for me. And my partner. And just about everybody we've ever worked with, who have been honest with us about how it made them feel. So when we realized this, we managed our butterflies by taking our attention off ourselves and putting it onto the people we were talking to with appreciation. It was a magical transformation. As soon as we shifted our attention off ourselves and put it on other people, we could finally hear what they were telling us, and could stop thinking about what we were going to say when they finally stopped jabbering and started asking us what we did for a living. So we were killing two birds with one stone: By focusing our attention on others, we were shifting our attention off ourselves (which did no good at all) and put it on them (which is where it belonged in the first place. And by doing it with appreciation, we were drawing them to us warmly and magnetically, because everyone appreciates being appreciated. 

When it comes to the question of what to say in a networking conversation, we applied a really simple rule that we apply to every presentation we develop with a client: Treat your audience like the main character of a story, and create a story about them. Of course, you can't do that in advance of the networking event like you do in advance of a formal presentation. So instead, you do it in conversation with people. In every story, a main character goes froma not-so-happy beginning to a happy ending by taking actions in the middle. So in a powerful networking conversation, you can find out from the people you're talking to what they're not-so-happy beginning is, what their happy ending is, and find someone in your network to help them closer to that happy ending. 

And I guess all this begs the question of why. Why do we want to do this in a networking conversation, if what we really want to do is sell our products and services? Because people will only buy from you if they like you and trust you. You can't instantly go for the sale as if they just walked into your store, because they didn't. They walked into a networking room. So you need to prove yourself worthy of their trust and appreciation. You need to set yourself up as a source of value to them. And the best way to do that is to be the person that gives them what they want and need.

Pete Machalek, co-founder/curriculum designer at Sage Presence, is a communications expert who has helped professionals find the right words and deliver them for maximum impact since 1999. He holds a Master's degree in a unique program he designed at the University of Iowa, combining Film Production and Communication Theory, as well as a Bachelor's in Speech & Communications from Gustavus Adolphus College. He produced and directed an Academy Awards semifinalist in 1991, and is past Director of Communications for the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD).

, co-founder/curriculum designer
Sage Presence
"Winning Presence for Make-or-Break Moments"
612.384.0763