The idea of presenting their business to a room full of strangers is enough to bring many a networker out in a cold sweat. In this article taken from his 'Networking Goat' blog, Kapil Kapur shares some of his thoughts on making the process a bit more enjoyable!
If I was to ask most networkers the most challenging part of networking, I think the answer would be doing their first ever 60 seconds. In many networking groups everybody is given 60 seconds to stand up and talk about their business.
The idea of presenting to strangers terrifies people. Even people who used to work in corporate backgrounds (who would have been used to engaging with very senior stakeholders) have found the idea of presenting to complete strangers nerve racking.
Now one thing that you should bear in mind is that I have a cleft palatte and hair lip. This has resulted in a slight speech impediment – meaning that presenting to strangers is also uncomfortable for me.
However having done it for a few years now, I’d like to share a few thoughts. Firstly I know some people fear the idea of talking to a room full of strangers so much that they simply don’t do it – they just sit out. But I think that they are not seeing the whole picture:-
In many networking groups there is a competition for the person giving the best 60 seconds. There is often a winners’ cup that you keep for a week. Because of my speech impediment I used to resign myself never winning this. However, my competitive side soon came to the fore and I decided to focus on trying to win the cup. Although it took a few months, I did go through a phase where I won the cup on a regular basis. The things that helped me win were:-
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