“Every big opportunity starts with a little conversation” – but what the hell does that mean

If you’ve seen me speak, anywhere, you’ve heard me say “every big opportunity starts with a little conversation”. I like soundbites, they’re useful, if you get them right they can convey a big concept in only a few words.

But because I use it so often, I wanted to explain a little further what it means, and how we, and by we I mean people who want to achieve more from their networking, can implement it.

I was convinced early on in my networking career, and perhaps you were too, that you had to achieve something at the networking event itself and yet, years into my networking career, I started setting the bar very low. Instead of having any formulaic way of speaking to and engaging with people, just because it was “networking”, I started to just be more human.

You see, here’s the first bit, all we really need to do is to start little conversations. Instead of thinking you’ve got to be more networky, if that is even a word, and ask networky questions and have networky conversations, why not just talk about the stuff which humans talk about?

I’ve found, not only for me, but with the people I work with too, that just having conversations takes a load of the pressure off.

So just use the networking event to start conversations. Talk to people as you…