{"id":43067,"date":"2013-05-11T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T19:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=43067"},"modified":"2024-06-06T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T06:31:00","slug":"2013-05-11-networking-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2013-05-11-networking-event","title":{"rendered":"How to Break the Ice at a Networking Event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Networking! How many times do you hear experts proclaim the amazing benefits of networking? Want to rapidly expand your business horizons\u2026network. Want to jump into a new and exciting opportunity\u2026network. Looking to build a group of trusted advisors and professional friends\u2026network. \u00a0In a general sense, it\u2019s great advice! Just network.<\/p>\n<p>We are heavily people-focused as real estate professionals. Regardless of \u00a0where you are in the real estate world, you likely reach out to a network on a daily basis to conduct your business.<\/p>\n<p>But how do you get started? How do you meet people when you don\u2019t know a single person, at say, a networking event?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong>\u00a0You walk into a networking event and everyone is chatting away in groups of three to five people with no intentions of opening up or letting go of their conversations. You\u2019re there to meet people, yet you don\u2019t have an \u201cin\u201d with anyone in the room. It can be a truly awkward moment that you wish you could have avoided. But you can\u2019t because everyone is already locked into conversation and you can\u2019t walk up to a friend or colleague. What next?!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution:<\/strong>\u00a0Give this a try. Own the fact that you don\u2019t know anyone and confidently approach a group and say \u201c<em>Hey all, I\u2019m new here and am looking to meet interesting people. \u00a0Do you mind if I join you?\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019d be amazed at how receptive people are to opening up and including you in their conversation. But the trick is\u00a0<em>you must make the first move<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick example:\u00a0<\/strong>I was recently invited to a local networking event and was very excited because of the opportunity to meet some truly interesting and engaging people. The problem: I didn\u2019t know a single person at the event and had no clue how it\u2019d go (scratch that, I knew one person, but he left very early on). I was on my own and really didn\u2019t want to be the fly on the wall.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Related<\/strong>: <a title=\"How to Lose Friends and Annoy People\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/03\/lose-friends-annoy-people\/\" target=\"_blank\">How to Lose Friends and Annoy People<\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So I basically had two choices. I could:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A) stick to the wall and look at the groups of people wishing I knew someone (anyone) to strike up a conversation with or<\/li>\n<li>B) get over the fact that I didn\u2019t know anyone and make a genuine effort to put myself out there.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I choose the latter, and the results were fantastic. \u00a0I made the awkward first move of introducing myself and admitting that I knew no one; but everyone I met was equally interested in meeting me and hearing my story. \u00a0Business cards were exchanged, jokes were had, drinks (surprisingly strong ones) were drank, and I had a great time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One thing to keep in mind:<\/strong>\u00a0Have your 30-second story down. The one question people will most commonly ask:\u00a0<em>What do you do?<\/em>\u00a0Once your story is down, you\u2019re set. Let the rest happen and have a great time. It\u2019s much easier than it appears once you make the all-important first step of putting yourself out there.<\/p>\n<p>Happy networking!<\/p>\n<p><span>Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27197915@N08\/6789794038\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GallivantingGirl<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Networking! How many times do you hear experts proclaim the amazing benefits of networking? Want to rapidly expand your business horizons\u2026network. Want to jump into a new and exciting opportunity\u2026network. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":803,"featured_media":169999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-marketing"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/803"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}