How to Network at Conferences

I was on a coaching call the other day with one of my students who is going to this large conference here in a couple weeks, and he’s asking questions about how he can get the most out of it from a networking perspective. And truthfully, I don’t go to many conferences these days. I don’t. I don’t specifically for networking at least. I go to speak on stages, but not necessarily for the networking. So it’s been a while since I’ve thought about this, but I wanted to share with you three tips, three ideas that you can take with you to get the most out of your networking, whether that’s at a big conference or at a local event, whenever you’re meeting new people. I think in a group where everybody is, like, there to network, but it’s a large social gathering, I think these three tips can help you quite a lot. At least they helped me a ton, because truthfully, I am so introverted at these types of events.

They’re very, very stressful for me. But the power of them, it’s hard to quantify. For instance, back in 2018, 2019, I went to a conference, and I went to, as a three day event, I said, I just need to go and meet one person, and that will then be a very good outcome for me. Like, if I just meet one good relationship, I’ll be happy with that. So I went into this conference hall, and there’s hundreds of people, and I’m immediately overwhelmed. So I look around the room, and I identify the one vacant table that has nobody sitting there. And I sit by myself in the corner. A couple of minutes later, a gentleman walks up, and he sits down next to me, another introvert who’s just trying to get away from everybody.

And we strike up a conversation. We become friendly, and we go to lunch, and then after the event, we follow up and we keep in touch, and we keep talking and helping each other out where we can. And then a couple of months later, we form Invictus Capital, and four or five years later, we now own $85 million of real estate together, that guy and myself. So that is the power of networking at these types of events, if you go into it and you know how to get your money’s worth. And so number one is just, this actually isn’t number one, but one thing to keep in mind is it’s not a quantity game. You’re not trying to go meet every single person. You’re not trying to be the business card ninja who’s slinging them out like ninja stars at people’s faces. Don’t do that.
Go and try and find quality relationships that you can nurture, because that’s where the value is. So number one is names. Dale Carnegie says in his book how to win Friends and influence people that the sweetest sound to any person is their name. And it makes sense. There’s this brilliant quote in Silicon Valley where Jared says, now I know a name is just a sound you make when you’re trying to get somebody’s attention, but they were calling him the wrong name. And I find that to be one of the greatest quotes of all time. People love the sound of their name. If you’re in a crowded room and you hear somebody a couple 1020 30ft away, say your name.
If your name comes up in casual conversation, they’re not even yelling, it just comes up. You’re going to hear and you’re going to go, what’s happening over there? It’s going to immediately grab your attention. Right? In the same way, if you forget somebody’s name, that doesn’t feel good either. And I know a lot of people struggle to remember names, but it’s very critically important if you want to stand out and make friends remember their name. So make a very conscious effort. And the way to do that is just keep repeating their name and let them know. Like, hey, dude, Brian, just so you know, I am really bad with names. So Brian, for the next five minutes, I’m going to be a little bit weird and awkward.
But Brian, I’m going to repeat your name 50 times. It’s going to keep coming up and I apologize for that. But Brian, I promise I’m never going to forget your name. And they’re going to get a laugh at it. They’re going to have a joke, but you’re not going to say it 50 times. But after like five or six of those, you’re going to go, Brian. That guy’s name is Brian, right? So you’re not going to forget it. Number two, go first.
Go first. When you come to an event like this, just understand everybody’s there to make friends and meet people and all that. That’s why they’re there. But it can be very scary. It can feel like high school again. The fear of rejection. What if you walk up to somebody, you start talking to them and they give you the look of like, what are you doing? Why would you approach me as if. But it’s not, it’s not like that.
And nobody ever really responds that way. And if they do, they’re a dick. Move on. But be the person that goes and makes proactive the conversation, because the other people, they probably are feeling the same amount of stress and anxiety. You can be the one that steps forward and helps alleviate that by introducing yourself and starting the conversations. And people will reciprocate, and that will get you far more at these events than sitting at the wall waiting for people to approach you. Number three is to follow up. This is the most important thing.
And it has nothing to do with what happens at the event itself. It happens after the event. See, so many people go to these events and they have these amazing conversations and they meet hundreds of people. And then you fast forward six months and their life is fundamentally no different. Their network is not improved because they have no ongoing relationships with any of these people. In the case of me and my business partner at Invictus, the reason that relationship turned so fruitful for both of us is because we kept following up. We kept reaching out in the weeks and months after the event to solidify the relationship. And that is where the opportunity for doing business finally came up.
It didn’t ever come at the networking event. It came through the follow ups. And eventually we started to see, hey, we jive, we click, let’s see if we can do something together here. And the result of that has been pretty awesome. But most people won’t do this. They’ll go and they’ll be the social butterfly. They’ll meet all the people and then they won’t follow up with anybody. They won’t make a meaningful relationship, and that’s a complete waste of the event.

Therefore, so be the person who takes notes after the event. Write them down. Write down the people that you want to follow up with. Today I met so and so. They said this and they have this. Take notes at the end of the event and then find them on LinkedIn or Instagram, Twitter, wherever, and reach back out. Continue the relationship. You are going to get so much more out of your networking when you do that than any other piece of advice anybody could ever give you.

So follow up and have fun as best you can. I know if you’re introverted, it can be stressful, but this is supposed to be fun. That’s theory. So hopefully you got some ideas out of this that can help you going into your next event and hopefully maximize you get the most out of it. So thanks as always for being here, guys and gals. We’ll see you in the next episode. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friends.