As your career mentor, I’m always looking for good advice from interesting people. Scott Dinsmore is a very cool guy who has some great advice on networking. I love his advice on how to connect with anyone. If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I am a big believer in the power of relationships. I think that relationships are so important to your life and career success that I devote 20 tweets in my career mentor book Success Tweets to them.
Scott’s thoughts on how to connect with people and building relationships are priceless. Yesterday, I shared 10 of them. Here are the next 10…
11. Make people’s days and provide memorable experiences. Get in the habit of making peoples’ days better. This could be as simple as a smile, compliment or heartfelt thank you. Provide fun/unique/enjoyable experiences that make life at least a little better.
12. Know who you are and who you want in your life. Know your passions, goals, talents, interests and the impact you want to have on the world. These will serve as your guiding light for how you can help and who you actually want to write into your story. Act with intention.
13. Be uniquely YOU. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. Don’t try to look and sound like someone else and don’t hold back! Be vulnerable and open. Share your real story and goals. Tell others about your wife, kids and parenting struggles. Talking about the weather does not build connection. Being real does.
14. Create trust. Every interaction is a chance to either build trust or erode it. Do what you say. Show up on time. Share who you are. Slowly open up your real world to others and they’ll do the same for you.
15. Keep track of everything. After every meeting or interaction, write down what stood out, what you learned about them, their goals, their interests, family, birthdays. Anything goes.
16. Pay attention. The easiest way to be interesting is to be interested. Find excitement in what you can learn from others. Hear what they say. Listen and learn about what matters to them. Not so you can say something back as soon as possible, but so you can get a window into their world. People want to tell their story. Be the person excited to hear it.
17. Follow up and keep up. Keeping track makes this all the easier. A phone call, lunch, email or casual introduction to someone helpful. Any will do. Follow up with unique value, keep them front of mind and keep yourself in the front of theirs.
18. See opportunity in others. Every new person is a chance to connect and help, and has the possibility of being the person you’ve been dying to meet. You won’t know unless you say hi.
19. Believe in people. Know that most people are inherently good and want to help as much as they want to be helped. They want to make the meaningful connections as badly as you do. They want to hear your story and they want to tell you theirs.
20. Find common ground. Everyone has something in common – see it as a fun challenge to find what it is. The faster you can find shared ideas, beliefs and interests, the quicker you can relate.
Tomorrow, I’ll share tips 21 — 31.
Your career mentor,
Bud
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