Overcome Your Fear of Networking!

In a recent article on Levo.com, Personal Branding Blog’s Heather Huhman discusses six ways to overcome your fear of networking. Acknowledging that networking “can be a scary thing to do” and “is a fear many people share,” this article provides six insightful tips for becoming a fearless networker.

Topics explored include using the magic of Twitter, attending fun networking events (WAC events for example!), hosting your own networking events, or even avoiding networking events altogether and attending workshops or speaker events to meet professionals in your industry. Another topic includes getting away from small talk and instead shifting “your focus to learning about the people you meet” and sparking “conversations with people by asking about their jobs, what they enjoy doing for fun, or why they like their jobs.”

Finally, Ms. Huhman explores the concept of “less is more” by encouraging forming one or two strong bonds with new people rather than collecting 20 business cards. By focusing on these steps, you can learn to overcome your fear of networking and learn to build “valuable relationships with people who can become friends and mentors.”

Keywords: woman advocate, litigation, networking, networking tips, conquering fears

_{Tiffany deGruy is a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP in Birmingham, Alabama.}

_{Copyright © 2016, American Bar Association. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or downloaded or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the American Bar Association, the Section of Litigation, this committee, or the employer(s) of the author(s).}