It's not about what you know, it is about who you know! We all heard about how
important it is to network for our careers but we really don't know how to
network. Hi, I'm Adriana Girdler, President of CornerStone Dynamics and a
productivity expert and in this video I'm going to share with you how to
network to advance your career. Show up! So what I mean by this is when you're in
a conversation with somebody and particularly when networking, you want to
give them your full attention, it really sucks when you're speaking to someone
particularly at a networking event and they're kind of really not talking to
you, they're looking everywhere else, you really want to focus your attention at
that particular moment with that particular person. A trick that I use is
eye contact, so really look at them so you're not distracted by everything else
around you. Listen up! So when we're talking to people we get so excited or
we're trying to think about the awesome things we're gonna say back that we
actually don't listen to a conversation and from a networking perspective you
can tell when someone's really not paying attention because you may miss a
mark of when to reply back so a trick that you can use is repeat back what
they said to you but summarize it, so if they ended a sentence, start your
conversation based on the last thing that they said, it shows that you were
listening but it also helps you to really know who they are and what
they're about. Network up! Find someone within your organization who has a lot
more experience than you and befriend them, ask them even if they can be your
mentor, there's a lot of value to having someone who's extremely experienced
guide you in the lovely world (or jungle) of the business scape that we can sometimes
be in so if you find someone who can help you, they can provide you with
guidance, they can even provide you with insights on any situations that you're
experiencing and even more importantly they can introduce you to people that
you would normally not have access to, so find someone in your organization and
mentor up. If you ever had a mentor, write 'MENTOR' in the comment section below and
I would love to hear your story. Speak up! This is really important with
networking, you do not want to be a wallflower, you don't want to be shy so
you're gonna have to really have some confidence and if you don't have it
you're gonna have to fake it till you make it and you can check out my video
on confidence to give you some tips there, but the whole idea is to speak up.
Introduce yourself, watch body language, see if people are
receptive to what you're saying but even more importantly there's a technique
that I use in order to start conversation and that's the FORD
Principle. Always ask these four aspects whenever you're in a conversation, to
start a conversation, to get it going. F is for Family, O is for Occupation, R
is for Recreation and D is for Dreams so if you keep that in mind you'll always
get some sort of feedback in regards to conversation particularly with someone
that you may not know yet. Link up! Alright, I'm talking about LinkedIn. It is
the professional network of choice and if you're not on LinkedIn yet
particularly because you may have just graduated from university or college, you
may not understand the importance of this particular social network. It is
professional, anybody who works in the working world is on this network and
everybody knows that we're there to network from a professional standpoint. A
lot of, now, HR goes through LinkedIn in order to find new job opportunities so
go out there, put your profile up, ensure you fill it out completely,
it truly is important and that's another way to keep connected with people that
you meet and meeting new people outside of your organization because you never
know where those opportunities are going to come to fruition and help you expand
your career. Speaking of networking, let's network! Please put in the comments
below your name and what it is that you do, I'd love to hear from you. Please
subscribe and like this video and if you want to start networking share this
video with your colleagues! I look forward to seeing you in my next video.
Bye!