Social skills and networking ability go together as essential life skills.
If a person lacks networking ability, and has social skills, the person can compensate and still be successful. Networking etiquette can be learned. However the lack of social skills is a more difficult issue to learn. With lack of social skills, networking becomes difficult. Networking is all about face to face communication, on the phone communication as well as online connections. Both networking skills and social skills are extremely valuable skills to master and polish over time regardless of your occupation.
Benefits Of Networking
Networking is great for anyone from any industry, students, business owners, really works well for everyone. Being social, you get learn of new ideas, meet new people so your sphere of influence expands, and are exposure to the latest trends. Can be valuable information for the right person.
Developing new connections, strengthen your current connections with others.
Being seen and developing connections, and relationships helps you to raise your visibility profile. People will remember you for referrals, recommendations, and be invited to a wide variety of events that extend beyond your current network social sphere.
Get out and connect never know who you will meet.
Networking builds your confidence that you can enter a room and introduce yourself to others and start conversations to turn strangers into friends and contacts. Networking can advance your career, your business, as well as help you land your first job, and much more. Networking is all about building long-term relationships with others. Build trust and rapport with others. Don't be in the habit of selling your services. Learn the art of networking.
Meet people and get to know them as well as what they do or services they provide. Ask genuine relevant questions. People will also be curious as to what you do and ask you questions. Then you can educate them on your offerings.
Objective is to be visible.
Get your face known.
Create friendships
Make Connections
The objective is to mix networking with social skills to create connections that are genuine and have more depth.
Social skills are valuable and necessary skills for everyone to learn to cultivate.
Networking puts you in touch with others that share common goals. People make friendships with others that have shared interests and common goals. Social skills and good personality that people find enjoyable to be around can make anyone very popular. Positive confident people who make others feel good around them tend to have a larger social circle.
What are social skills you ask?
Everyone uses social skills on a daily basis to interact and verbally communicate with other people. Social skills also include spoken and non verbal communication. Non verbal communication includes speech, choice of words, gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, volume of your speech, body language, and personal appearance. Non verbal communication are signals that other people pick up on and conveys a message that is more powerful than what is spoken verbally.
Dress accordingly and professionally for each event.
People do judge on appearance.
For example, you arrive at a business networking event dressed in beach attire could put you in an award situation of explaining what you were doing earlier that day or the possibility you may not be taken seriously as a professional. Another example would be you dress in a uniform or monogramed shirt for your business or job. That is ok because most people attend these events after work and can clearly understand you are in your industry attire.
Be conscious of how you communicate with others. Make eye contact, positive non verbal communication provides more information about you than what is conveyed in your conversations. People pick up on subtle cues, so be mindful of that of your non verbal communication in front of people. A helpful way to see how you are perceived by others is to video tape yourself talking in causal conversations. The video will be a guide of what you need to work on to improve your social skills.
Suggestions to improve your social skills and networking skills are to take a course, hire a coach, read a book. Search for videos and websites online for some advice on improving and mastering your people skills. Another really good way to learn these necessary skills is to pay attention to how other successful networkers conduct themselves in these social events. Huge amounts of information can be learned from observing and listening to experienced social networkers in action.
Brenda
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Other articles that you maybe interested in that are similar to this article:
https://www.breaie.com/blog/business-etiquette-is-a-must-for-success
https://www.breaie.com/blog/relationship-marketing-benefits
Cited Sources:
https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/social-skills.html
https://medium.com/swlh/9-benefits-of-networking-in-business-66b2445e6d84
