If you’re doing things right you’re actually encouraging that!
A one-way networking conversation isn’t a good one. And the irony is that the better the networker we become, sometimes we actually encourage these conversations. I’ll explain why
Some people aren’t good at asking questions and most people aren’t good listeners. They’re more comfortable talking about themselves and their business. In other words, they’re trying to be interesting before they’re interested
So if you ask lots of good, open questions and listen properly (asking questions about their answers, etc), they’ll like that. And because they like it, they might just keep talking to someone who is actually listening to them!
Yet that’s not a two-way conversation – so what can we do? Hopefully, we don’t have to do anything – they might catch themselves dominating the conversation and start asking about you. Or we can step in when they draw breath, say something about ourselves and give the chat a bit more balance. Or if nothing is working, we can always politely exit the ‘conversation’
One-way networking conversations aren’t fun and shouldn’t take up too much of our time. However, if we stick with them for a while and listen properly, we find out a lot of information and develop more relationships. Then make it a 2-way conversation!
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