When you’re at a networking event, you can get a lot more accomplished if you partner up with one or two people and work the room together.
Let’s say there are 50 people at a two-hour event. You probably don’t know everyone in the room, and you definitely won’t have the opportunity to introduce yourself to everyone. If you introduced a fellow networker to your existing connections and they did the same for you, you would create a win-win situation and maximize the number of people each of you meets.
You should make a pact with yourself to be a facilitator of introductions. Introduce yourself to a new person, tell them what you do, ask them what they do, and maybe just set the precedent: “Hey, let me introduce you to a few people I know, and you can do the same for me.” Not only do you get a chance to meet people you may not have otherwise met, but you also get an instant rapport boost because you are being introduced by someone that the person already knows. In other words, you’re no longer a stranger – you’ve become a friend-of-a-friend.
