Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous, this is episode number 041 with your host Christine Schlonski and you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast. I am so happy you are here. This is another variety Friday where I am sharing my knowledge with you, where I am answering questions that you have send in and also were just share amazing resources. So if you want to know more about resources, about other episodes, seeing the show notes, the transcripts, etc. just hop on over to christineschlonski.com and find the podcast tab. And there you go, everything you need at your fingertips. So thank you so much for tuning in. And today I have a question actually. And this question also goes with my experience.

Christine Schlonski [1:00]
So it’s kind of a double share. I’ve been to quite some networking events in the last weeks. And I just had the conversation with one of my clients who wanted to know what is the best way to approach somebody in a networking situation And here we go. We’re going to talk today about how you can introduce your self. So often I see it at networking events that you know, you go to a person or your approach and then you say your name like Hi, my name is, which I personally don’t really like my name is I always say I am because I find it more powerful, but that’s definitely up to you. And then you say your name and then then you have to pay close attention so that things don’t get boring.

Christine Schlonski [1:59]
So so often I hear well, Hi, I’m Josephine and I am a life coach. Duuuhhh that’s definitely not a good approach. Because first of all, the person might not really know well, what’s a life coach? Life coach that such a wide field, like what does this person do? And you know, I wouldn’t have really another questions regarding that person. What you want to do in that really, really short period of time where you only have like some seconds to introduce yourself, you want to achieve as an outcome, as a goal, that the person is interested in what you have to offer because they might be your ideal client and if they are not, well, they will just walk away but if they are they will let you know and they will ask you: well tell me more!

Christine Schlonski [3:04]
And then you have such a great opportunity to either tell them more, to have a deeper conversation, to get them on your scheduler, so you can have a call with them. But really, you want to kind of get their interest. So never do something like everybody else is doing like, well, I’m a coach, I’m a photographer, I’m an internet marketer, I’m a musician like really come up with something that grabs their attention. And usually what grabs attention is if it’s not about you, if it is about them. So if you’re a life coach, what do you coach? What do you coach on? What do you love to coach on like, get clear on that and then you can say something to the degree like, well: I support people who feel stuck and they feel their life is out of harmony, to step back to that place where they totally feel fulfilled.

Christine Schlonski [4:16]
So you have a pain point that you are addressing, which means that gives you It gives you their attention. And you also paint a wonderful picture of where this could go. So if I would be a person that you know where my life is out of harmony, and I’m suffering, I would pay close attention to that life coach without knowing that the person is a life coach, because, you know, so often we take titles in our introduction, but what’s the title right? A title doesn’t tell you what the person can do for you like Hi, I’m a doctor. What great like what kind of doctor What do you usually solve? Hi, I’m a photographer. Well, what kind of photographer? Are you taking pictures of families? Are you taking pictures of nature, of animals, like they’re, they’re all of these expertise involve a different kind of skill set. So you want to make sure that you really address what is your ideal client looking for.

Christine Schlonski [5:28]
So you can just sit down or you can interview your clients and just make a list of Yeah, let’s start this five to 10 things that people come to you with where they are in pain, like they feel unfulfilled. They feel stress, they feel stuck. For me, that’s definitely they are very uncomfortable with sales, maybe even they hate sales, or they choke when they make an offer, or they stammer on their words. So these are all feelings or situations where the client struggles and then obviously you tell them your solution, right? Because it doesn’t make sense when you say well, I work with people who struggle with sales who feel uncomfortable, who even hate sales and choke when they make an offer. Well, that doesn’t do any good for the conversation because that’s just a fact. And maybe the person can identify but they might not let you know that they have identified and that they feel a struggle with sales. So you also want to provide them with what you can do for them. So I help them to make offers with ease, grace, and confidence so they can serve more people, make more sales, receive more money to have a business and the lifestyle they truly, truly love.

Christine Schlonski [7:02]
Well now we’re talking because if that is you and you would be my ideal client, then you would be interested in knowing what how can I do that with ease, grace, and confidence when now I’m so struggling with it, even to the extent where I choke, where my stomach might be turning, where I feel like I’d rather run away than actually inviting the person to buy from me, right? So you get really, really clear on what you offer what is a transformation people are getting and also what are the pain points and then instead of introducing yourself with a title or with yeah well basically your name needs to stay in place obviously, but you know, with a title you, you speak to people from place of what you solve and what the pain is and if you have your ideal client in front of you in a networking situation, they will definitely say Wow, that’s great, tell me more. Or wow, that’s me. I love what you do. And then you have an opportunity to really get to know that person, to set up a call with them, to invite them to join your course or your Facebook group or your email list. Whatever it is, be interested in the person, be true to yourself, be authentic, and make an invitation and also be totally okay if it is a no right because it’s it’s networking and also in those networking situations I’ve noticed quite often and it really used to be true for myself, is that sometimes we just get stuck in a conversation that doesn’t serve us.

Christine Schlonski [9:00]
So we’ve made our introduction. And then we want to be polite, we figured out that the person is not our ideal client. And we still hang in there. We still don’t leave the conversation in a very nice way. We just stay with that person, maybe for 10720, maybe even 30 minutes. And we are losing out on all the other amazing opportunities because we could not say no, and we could not, you know, leave the conversation by just saying, well, it was nice to meet you. And you know, there’s so many other people here to network with so just let’s use this opportunity, both of us, right? So that’s a way where you can get out of a conversation that is not really serving you because you already have identified the person that is not your client, that is not going to work with you and that might not bring any other value to you and your business. And they are just nice. And because you’re also just nice, you keep interacting.

Christine Schlonski [10:15]
And I think that’s really important before you even go into a networking meeting that you make sure like, what do you want to get out of this network meeting to this? How many people would you love to connect and then really be mindful that you do the job and that you do reach the number of people that you came for? Because you never know. You know, it only needs like one connection that might lead to your next client and that might lead to completely change your life. So just be mindful of that. Find a way to introduce you where you actually get a lot of interest. Where people want to know more. And if you found out that it’s not the person that’s really interesting for you also find a way how to end a conversation in a loving, respectful way, not just, you know, turning around and working off. In a loving, respectful way so that you can use your time and speak to as many people as you can. Because you know, that gets your word around and you know, somebody might say, well, I talked to her earlier and she does x y z I think you should be talking to her but if you just talk to a couple people that’s not going to support you. So my advice for today, pretty simple when you go out networking be really clear what you want to achieve, how many people you would love to connect to? Be really interested in what they have to say what they have to offer because you never know how that can help you and your life and also make sure that if it’s not a match in any way leave the conversation in a friendly loving way to get to more people and then also don’t be the boring one in the conversation be the one where people go like wow Tell me more.

Christine Schlonski [12:29]
So I hope this really helped. If you have questions for variety Friday you can send them into info@christineschlonski.com, if you have any kind of feedback please just message me as well I’m really looking forward to hearing from you. I hope you enjoyed this episode and it was helpful and yeah, I would love to know when it comes to your next networking opportunity how well you did? What you did? And yeah, if you can share that. That would be amazing by just sending an email to info@christineschlonski.com Thank you so much for tuning in today. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world and I’m saying bye for now.