Women in Business – Networking for Success & The Highly-Evolved Networking Conversation Starter

Recently I attended a business cocktail party where private companies were meeting with venture capitalists and investment bankers. I didn’t know anyone, so I walked around looking for a friendly face in the group feeling self-conscious and out of place. I needed to be at the event and I really wanted to meet some of the people who were part of the evening. I would have frankly been more comfortable at a bar asking strangers about their astrological roots, but instead I forced myself to be sociable forging a bargain with myself that if I met two people and exchanged business cards, I could leave.

According to a survey conducted by the Bolton Institute, businesswomen tend to be restrained and unassuming while networking with their male counterparts. The survey data showed that men go for any business opportunity when networking regardless of their skill level. Equally, men place a higher emphasis on their business/career strategy then women. That is why male mentors can be of great help to women wanting to succeed in the old boys networks when the mentors willingly teach strategies of money-making instead of self-promotion. Women are more concerned about the image they present to the public than necessarily promoting their business venture.

Full Story: http://www.inc.com/resources/women/articles/20050701/weidenhamer.html

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The Highly-Evolved Networking Conversation Starter

If an Elevator Pitch is not the way to start a networking conversation, as we proposed last week (in the post called The Least Interesting Thing About You) then what is?

Here are some suggestions to get a networker going. For pure puckishness, you can’t beat Mark Phillips’ prescription:

SOMEONE: "What do you do?"
YOU: "When?"

By Liz Ryan

Full Story: http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/9586/