Do you dread walking into rooms full of strangers when attending networking events? Do you feel intimidated starting conversations with new people who could become game-changing connections? If so, you’re not alone.
As a female entrepreneur, making new business connections is crucial but can be downright nerve-wracking. When surrounded by unfamiliar faces, it’s easy to feel anxious and struggle to initiate meaningful conversations. However, networking doesn’t have to be painful. With the right strategies, you can develop the confidence to make connections smoothly at any event. Picture yourself easily walking up to new people, introducing yourself, and diving into enjoyable conversations. Envision coming across as warm, articulate, and engaged.
In this article, I’ll share six proven techniques to help you network confidently as a female founder. Implementing these will allow you to maximize the value of networking events by comfortably connecting with more relevant, beneficial contacts.
1. Visualize Success
The first step is to visualize yourself smoothly and successfully networking before arriving at the event. Picture yourself easily walking up to new people, introducing yourself, and engaging in enjoyable conversations. Imagine being warm, articulate, and interested in learning from others. Envision making natural connections and exchanging contact information for follow-ups.
Visualization exercises like this have been found to boost confidence significantly in stressful situations. Psychologically, you’ll feel like you’ve already been successful, which builds comfort for real interactions. Set aside 5-10 minutes to visualize these positive outcomes before leaving for the event.
2. Practice Conversation Starters
Like most skills, good conversational skills require practice. Set aside time to rehearse introductions and open-ended questions that will act as conversation starters when networking. For example, rehearse saying your name and asking, “What brings you here today?” or “What topics interest you most in our industry?”
The more prepared you are with icebreakers like these, the smoother initiating conversations will feel. Practice out loud in front of a mirror or with friends to improve your delivery. Having 3-5 rehearsed opening lines and interesting questions will make starting interactions much more effortless.
3. Focus on Learning, Not Selling
It’s common to feel pressure to sell yourself and immediately pitch your business when networking. However, this can cause anxiety and turn people off. Instead, shift your mindset away from selling yourself and toward learning from the people you meet. Focus on asking questions, actively listening, and seeking to understand their perspectives and experiences.
This learning mindset will take pressure off you to perform, allowing more authentic relationship-building conversations to flow. It will also demonstrate a genuine interest in others, which people appreciate.
For example, Lisa is an entrepreneur attending a tech conference mainly to network. Rather than aggressively promoting her product to everyone she meets, she asks questions to learn what trends they are seeing, challenges they face, and advice they can offer someone starting out. This engages people much better.
4. Research Attendees
Review who will be attending the networking event beforehand. Look up their companies, roles, backgrounds, recent news, etc. This allows you to tailor icebreaker conversations based on their interests and achievements. It also provides common ground so you can avoid generic small talk.
For example, after researching attendees from a few companies, you can ask, “I saw that ABC Company recently expanded into the European market. What key lessons have you learned from that expansion?” This level of preparation takes the pressure off thinking of questions on the spot and shows sincere interest in learning from them.
5. Have a Follow-Up Goal
Rather than setting a broad goal to meet as many people as possible, set a specific goal around follow-up meetings or connections. For example, your goal could be to connect with 3-5 people you’d like to meet with later to discuss potential partnerships, advice on entering a new market, etc.
Having this strategic follow-up goal will give you a sense of purpose and prevent aimless mingling. Identify the most relevant people and companies to have meaningful conversations with rather than trying to interact with everyone.
6. Reflect and Improve After Each Event
An essential step to boosting your confidence when networking is to reflect after each event on what went well and what you can improve for next time. Consider which of your prepared questions and opening lines worked best to start conversations. Which body language put people at ease? What follow-up connections did you secure?
Equally importantly, reflect on any awkward moments or conversations that missed the mark. How can you smoothly disengage next time if needed? What questions or tone of voice backfired? Don’t dwell on mistakes, but learn from each experience. The more events you attend and post-event reflections you do, the more comfortable, skilled, and confident you’ll become at networking. Over time, you’ll develop a flexible toolkit of conversation starters, listening techniques, and methods to connect authentically.
Developing confidence in networking takes practice, but utilizing these proven techniques can help accelerate the process. Visualizing success, preparing opening lines, focusing on learning, researching attendees, setting follow-up goals, and reflecting on each event will all help boost your comfort with networking.
Implement these tips starting today. As you network more frequently, the anxiety will lessen, and your ability to make strong connections will grow. Soon you may even look forward to attending events and interacting with new people!
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