Mix it up

At an all-day marketing seminar yesterday, I saw a cardinal rule of networking at work. When there was more than one member of a "delegation" from an attending company, the savvy networkers did the right thing:

They split up.

That's right, don't sit with your comrades. Heck, you see them all of the time at the office or in the work space. Besides, you want to meet and engage new people. You can do that best when you are by yourself and talking one-on-one with a stranger.

And, please note, a stranger in this case, is someone you haven't met yet.

My friend, Melinda Guravich, and her associate, Andrea Kirsten-Coleman, of Mary Kay, do this the best of any corporate tag team I know. Probably because they are exceptional collaborators, they use this rule to their advantage. Rarely do you see Melinda and Andrea seated at the same table at a business meeting. The result is that they come away with more new contacts and information than they would have if they had sat at the same table and engaged each other in conversation.

Relentless