Networking for Introverts

About the Facilitator

Eric Salazar (The Clarinet Guy) is a performer, composer, and career coach. He performs recitals and concertos of classical music that he feels connected to. Sometimes what he plays isn't all-classical, but a merging of different genres, like jazz and ambient. As a career coach, he focuses on teaching people who don't consider themselves to be “business people” how to be effective managers or leaders in the business world, while still staying true to themselves.

About the Session

If no one knows you exist, no one can hire you! This workshop breaks down the networking process and provide tools to help you meet people and expand your professional network. We'll frame Networking as a skill that can be developed, and use exercises to help us prepare ourselves to connect with others in order to advance our careers.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this workshop participants will have:

• practiced networking in a safe environment
• produced a list of networking prospects
• produced a cheat sheet for talking about their own work

Experiential Activities

Speed Questions: Similar to speed dating, participants are given a few minutes to prepare a set of 1-3 general questions, and 1-3 talking points about their work. Participants connect with each other over several rounds, and are given a chance to practice their networking skills. Rounds are timed, at 3 minutes (with a 30 second transition period).

Prospect Searching: Participants are given work time to research potential collaborators, clients, or customers using the techniques shared in the presentation. Participants then create a list of prospects: outlining the name of the prospect, why they want to contact the prospect, and the prospect's contact info.

Cold Call Template Design: Participants are given work time to create a cold call template they can use to reach out to potential collaborators, clients, or customers. The template includes: friendly greeting, elevator pitch of their work, the reason they reached out, and memorable closing statement.

REGISTER

For more details, contact Bea Northcott at bnorthcott@leadershipjohnsoncounty.org or 317.441.5295.