Ep 43 // AskAkua - For Reluctant Networkers

NOTE: Please excuse any errors in this transcript; it was created using an AI tool. Akua Nyame-Mensah 0:07 Welcome to the open door podcast. My name is Akua Nyame-Mensah. I also respond to Aqua and I'm a certified executive and leadership coach recognised facilitator and former sort of leader that loves supporting reluctant buyer fighting and overwhelmed leaders. I've worked with them to help them clarify where they should focus their time, and energy each and every day so that they can love themselves, love their work, and ultimately love their life. If you're looking to learn leadership information and hear different perspectives, you are in the right place. My aim in this podcast is to help you see that one of the most productive and profitable things you can do is deeply understand yourself. Understand how you show up, understand how you thrive, and allow yourself to align everything in your work in your life, and in your business to support that think of this podcast as your weekly opportunity to receive leadership support. And remember, there is no one right way to lead yourself or others. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the open door conversations Podcast. I'm really excited because I'm bringing back the q&a. So today, I have two questions. And I think that these questions are so important right now, especially if you're a founder or a business owner, or even a middle manager, we're going to be talking about building relationships. And for me, this was one of the key skills that I had to learn. When I first had the opportunity to build an online platform and build the team around it. I had to learn how to leverage my more introverted and potentially challenging personality in the right situations to be able to connect with potential clients, partners, collaborators, team members, subordinates, and investors, any stakeholder All right, so this week, I wanted to share two questions that I received related to networking. The first is about physical networking. And the second is all about virtual networking or thinking about building your network virtually. All right, so let's get into the first question. The first question I have here is, as things open up again, how can I make the most of the physical events that I decide to attend? As a reluctant networker? I love this question. Because I'm still a reluctant networker. I actually prefer networking online. I tell people this all the time. But I recently went to a networking event, actually, this weekend, on Friday. So last Friday, I went to a networking event. And I was really proud of myself, because I think one of the things that really helps me get over that reluctance, that really helps me, you know, feel really good about putting myself out there. Because it is something to put yourself out there, especially if you don't know anyone really, is the fact that I was very intentional about what I was doing there. And I made sure that as I thought about this event, I prepped myself for it. So the first thing that I did, and for some of you listening to this, you might think this is somewhat silly, but I think that this is so important to be able to show up and get things done is I was comfortable, I made sure that I wore something that I knew I'd be comfortable in that I felt good in, that I know wouldn't embarrass me. And I know some of you listening to this know what I mean, right? I'm not trying to impress people here, I'm just trying to look, you know, as good as I can. But make sure that I'm comfortable. And it's something that's easy to walk around in. Because when you go to a physical networking event, you're more than likely to walk around. If you are looking to do that. That's not always the case. All right. The second thing that I made sure I did, and this is something that I do every so often anyway, is I had a bit of an elevator pitch, I wanted to be able to talk about what I was doing in a coherent way. And I wanted to make sure that my pitch made sense for the environment and the people that I knew I was going to be around. So this was a tech enabled event. I knew a lot of the people that were going to be there were probably going to be people in the tech space. So I wanted to make sure that whatever I was sharing would be relevant to them. And I tested it out at the event, and a few people took my business card. And that brings me to the next thing on my list. Yes, I still have business cards. And funnily enough, I'm never I've never been someone who's been a big fan of business cards, but this is the reason why I like them at networking events. I prefer business cards because I don't actually like giving out my number. I actually do not like people calling me I do not like people what sapping me. If you've listened to some of my previous episodes, you might have heard me go off on a rant actually on WhatsApp specifically. And so on my business cards, I have my name I have my website and I also have my email address which is actually how I prefer for people to reach out to me. And so I like having a business card, because what that means is someone can't shove their phone in my face, what I can do instead is give my business card, and a few people actually took a picture of it, which I don't mind. But I just have a preference for people, you know, reaching out either through my website, so they have more information about what I do, or via my email. So that's why I like having business cards. So making sure that you have business cards, if that's something of interest to you. Another thing I have on my list here is that I smiled a lot. Once again, some of you listening to this might laugh at this, but I'm honestly just not the most outgoing. And I'm sure some people are surprised to hear that. But I'm really not. So I smile a lot. And I've also just accepted the fact that I'll be incredibly awkward and stand by myself incredibly awkwardly, and that's okay. All right. So some of the other things that I have on here, and I mentioned this earlier on, but I wasn't really explicit about it. So I'm just going to share it again. But I really had a plan, I was very intentional. I knew what I was there for there was one specific thing that I wanted to do, I wanted to meet the organisers so they saw my face, they knew who I was, because we were actually going to have a virtual meeting a few weeks later. So I just wanted to make sure that they actually saw me in person. And you know, once I completed that task, I was good, I was actually ready to go once I had the conversation with the people actually, that were hosting the event. The next thing I have on here is I actually invited someone that I knew that was somewhat good and very comfortable at networking and connecting with people, I think that's also a really good way to break the ice. So after I was done with my task, I just went and found him and just sort of was like tagging along a bit. And that was fine. And then the last thing that I have on here, and I really would recommend, for those of you that don't feel as comfortable doing physical networking is making sure that you follow up with some of the people that you meet. So if you get business cards, we get people's phone numbers. If you connect with people on LinkedIn, or any other social media platform based on going through a networking event, please make sure that you follow up with them, you know, schedule those calls, coffee chats, making sure that you're able to have a conversation about how you can actually partner is just a really great next step. So make sure that you do that. Alright, so that's how I would make the most of the events that I decide to attend. As a reluctant networker. It's what I do. It's what I did last weekend, let me know what you think of some of these suggestions that I've shared, feel free to reach out on social media. If you think there's anything I should add this next one, let's get into virtual networking. This is actually where I like to spend most of my time and why I really love having a virtual business, beyond the fact that I think I connect can connect with a lot of people who are interested in the work that I do, and that I can support. I can work with people all over the world. So this really comes from someone who sort of was following up on a workshop. So it was a virtual workshop that I did, they saw recording, and they reached out. And so this was the question. The question was, you mentioned that it's important to follow up on likes, as well as comments. So this is in relation to building relationships, specifically on my favourite social media platform right now, which is LinkedIn. So she asked, Could you give me some hints as to what kind of actions that are fitting to take after someone has liked my post, but not commented. So just to give you a little bit more context? This is really a question for people that are thinking about leveraging a social media platform for either building out their business or building out their network or building out their thought leadership. And for me, it's been a really crucial part of really building my thought leadership and building my business. And so I think that this is a really great question to ask. And as someone who's always thinking about, how can I show up, but it not take over my life? Right? How can I make sure I make the most of the time that I do decide to show up on social media, and specifically LinkedIn. So I just wanted to share my three thoughts about showing up online, and how you can make the most of the content that you do post and potentially get a little bit more engagement beyond the likes. So this first thing I have on here is adding people who actually, you know, like your post, right? So the question was, how do you follow up on likes, as well as comments. So my first thought is adding people who comment and like your content, your posts on LinkedIn. And as you add them, always make sure that you leave a note. So you want to make sure that you use the desktop version of LinkedIn, because I think that's the easiest one to leave a note, if you are requesting to add someone to your network, and make sure that you mentioned that you appreciate that they engage with your content in the note, and you're welcome to also ask, you know, do you have any other thoughts for content I can create, you know, what did you like about it? You know, you can just start to build a authentic and genuine relationship by requesting that they add you to their network. Alright, so that's the first thought I have. The second one I have is actually adding a comment to the post and tag someone who left a like so this is something that I will sometimes do. It's not always The easiest thing to do and you might have, you know, something going off in your head that says, hey, that's too much, that's too pushy. But the reality is that if they actually liked your post, I don't see anything wrong with tagging them. But of course, make it open ended, you know, you don't want to make it forceful. But it could be something along the lines of, you know, thanks so much for liking on my post at whoever liked your post, was there anything specific that you felt sort of stood out or anything that I should add, or that I left, I think that's once again, a great way to sort of genuine and authentic relationship. The last one I have on here is making sure that you include a call to action in the post that says comment below. And that you're the first person to comment, I find and this is something that I'm testing out right now. But I find that I get more comments, when I'm the first to engage with my own post, and others are more likely to leave a comment as well. I think when you are doing online networking, and you are thinking about leveraging the online space to build out your network, or build out your audience, or whatever you want to describe it, it's so important to remember that people still might be benefiting from what you're creating, and what you're posting and what you're sharing, even if they don't engage, even if they don't leave a comment. So I share this all the time with people who reach out to me for my LinkedIn thoughts. But a lot of people that work with me a lot of people that invest, you know, their time and energy and financial resources to work with me never engage with my content. So it's really important to keep in mind that you could still be having a positive impact, you still could be positively influencing others, and others might be seeing your content without ever having to engage or ever leaving a comment on there. I just wanted to make sure that I share that as well when it comes to thinking about virtual outreach and virtual networking. All right, so this is a bit of a shorter podcast episode. But I did want to answer those questions, and I thought it would be fun to put together those two networking related questions. If you have any thoughts for me, anything else you want me to share around this topic, please feel free to reach out on social media. Everything is linked in the show notes. And as always, please feel free to leave a question and my question link that is also going to be linked in the show notes. But thank you so much for taking the time to listen. And I am so excited because my 50th episode is actually going to be coming out very soon, as well. So I just really appreciate that you've continued to listen to my episodes. And as always, stay safe and stay sane. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to today's episode. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please share it with your friends. We can continue this conversation on social media the links to my socials so that is LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. You can find them in the show notes. If you tagged me in a story and include the hashtag hashtag ask Akua I will share a special little gift with you. Thank you so much once again for your time and I cannot wait to share my next episode with you stay safe and sane.