Svaha: the time between seeing lightning and hearing the thunder
Several of your recommendations stuck with me and they have been very useful.
- Think that the people you are going to meet at the event are all your friends. That has helped me open up more.
- Don’t think you have to “work the room,” or meet many people. Be with the person you are talking to at the time. The thought has helped control some urges for meeting more people and leaving the one I am talking to, and allowed for more in-depth conversations.
- Stay a bit afterwards, and talk with the people you found interesting. Leave a “hook” to make sure you stay in contact after the event.
I went to a talk yesterday; I enjoyed it and made at least one wonderful and potentially useful contact.
Your webinar was well worth all the time spent and the small fee, many times over.
- Benjamin Sagalovsky, Lean Six Sigma consultant & trainer at Variance Reduction Int'l, San Diego
I went to a two-day seminar this week. The topics were very work-related and, as usual, I went hoping to learn things I could use. Normally, I would have made a very big effort to talk to as many people as possible and unload business cards right and left. After your class I decided that this was not a good networking opportunity and decided to just relax and pay attention to the technical program.
So, of course, five people ASKED for my card and one person asked for my resume. I am fairly sure that I will get work. AND, I had a good time talking to people and finding out how the technical program applied to them and how they intended to use the information.
- Nancy Pasquan, Software Process Consultant, Eyes On, Inc.
Seriously, though, you know that networking is important, maybe even crucial, for your success.
And you know that the way you feel about it is making you miserable. Which makes it very hard to find people you want to connect with — and even harder to create that connection when you do find them.
You want to network. You want to make great connections, grow your career or business, and enjoy yourself (instead of feeling self-conscious and awkward). You need what networking can do for your career.
And you’ve tried.
You’ve read books, you’ve taken classes. People who swear they once hated networking even more than you do have told you all the rules that are supposed to make it work. And you’ve tried.
But it hasn’t gotten any easier. In fact, sometimes you think it’s getting harder.
You’re finding more reasons to dread it — and more reasons to feel like a failure. Just thinking about getting yourself out the door to an event makes you feel nervous, frustrated, and exhausted. Your stomach sinks and your shoulders rise.
And on top of it all, you’re just not getting the results you want — the results you see other people enjoying. The results you need.
Is it possible to stop dreading networking? Can you find a way to at least tolerate it? Could you even become one of those people who make great connections and have FUN at networking events?
Rules don’t work. They can’t work, because following rules just means trying to force yourself to do something you really don’t want to do.
Here’s some of what you’ll find in this program.
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Click here to go read about the package components.
It works because it’s based on two key facts.
Key Fact One
There are two parts to every situation: the internal part and the external part. While
both of them have to be humming for you to experience real success, the internal part is
by far the most important.
Most approaches to networking only address the external part — all those rules about what
you’re supposed to do at an event. This program focuses on the internal part
first, and only then talks about the external aspects of networking. (Without subjecting
you to all those rules!)
Key Fact Two
Formal networking is inherently artificial. And yet it’s also supposed to be all
about creating authentic relationships. This program addresses this fundamental discrepancy, helping
you find ways to deal with the artificiality, be yourself, and get results.
Jennifer Hofmann took the class from which the program was developed, and has also been working with the workbook (which has more than twice the content of the original class handout). Here’s what she has to say.
I’m the one who summarized networking with three words: “Dread, dread, and dread.” I’d been to countless groups: chamber, greeters, membership networking, you name it. I couldn’t understand how all these interesting people seemed as stiff and awkward as I felt.
Grace, in your own inimitable style, you’ve lifted the veil on my ineffective networking techniques. I went to an event just last week and actually fully enjoyed myself. I made real connections based on shared interests — instead of worrying about what I “should” do at a networking event.
This product isn’t priced high enough when you consider the value of the referrals and the increased business you’ll receive. I was a skeptic. Now I’m telling everyone I know — corporate and self-employed alike — that they have to have your book.
I don’t know how to recommend this strongly enough!
- Jennifer Hofmann, Inspired Home Office, Salem, Oregon
Ben Sagalovsky and Nancy Pasquan were participants in the networking teleclass on which this program is based. They independently, and without my asking, sent me delightful notes about their success after taking the class. You can see their comments in the sidebar on the left.
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(Please click the “return to Svaha Concepts” link when you’ve completed the transaction. There’s one more step that will help ensure you receive the download information immediately!) |
I’m ridiculously happy to be offering this program. I can put myself back just a few years ago and remember ... remember walking into an event with my neck and shoulders so tense that I could feel the headache growing. Remember driving away from events in tears about what a disaster I’d made of it. Remember wondering what it took to actually make networking work. Remember telling my friends that I just wasn’t going to network any more, it wasn’t worth the pain and struggle.
Now, my networking is a significant part of my business success — and a significant part of my enjoyment of my business. (And yes, I’m amazed and delighted to be able to write that statement!)
I wish there had been someone there for me, to teach me what I want to teach you. The classes I attended and the books I read all told me the same old stuff — the stuff that I suggest you just throw out. For a long time, I believed I was doing something wrong, but it was really only that the traditional rules and ideas about networking were wrong for me, just as they’re wrong for most people.
I’m not going to tell you that it won’t take some work. I’m certainly not going to tell you that this is some sort of magic that will transform you into a completely confident, assertive, networking superstar.
But I am going to tell you that the ideas, questions, and perspectives in this program can help you be successful in your networking efforts — and can take you well beyond networking, if you’ll let them.
Because you can become a good networker.
And as Jen Hofmann says in her testimonial above, you can actually enjoy yourself and realize real benefits in your professional career.
There’s so much potential when you make a really solid connection with someone new.
That one person could lead to a new job, new clients, referrals to people who can help you in as-yet-unknown ways.
Only you can say what the value might be, in personal satisfaction, time saved, and money earned.
94 pages of detailed concepts, exercises, tips, and techniques.
This is solid content — although it’s a workbook, I didn’t waste space with blank lines for you to write on. You’ve got plenty of paper of your own, and it creates better results (and it’s much more fun) when you have unlimited space to write as much as you want and need.
And that page count doesn’t include the cover page, table of contents, or “About the Author” pages. Just content, all content, nothing but content.
You’ll find concrete guidance on everything from discovering how your belief structures about networking affect your results (and how to shift those beliefs to get much better results), to understanding exactly what your networking objectives are (and how those objectives influence your strategy). And a whole lot more in between.
This is the Second Edition, updated with a few new perspectives for its one-year birthday!
Take a peek at the Table of Contents.
Listen as I review the techniques and ideas with real people discussing real networking issues. The two class recordings have been tightly edited so that there’s only content — you don’t have to listen to all the “umms” or to long pauses while people gather their thoughts.
After editing, the first recording is 1:13:39 long. The second is 1:07:35 long.
There’s nothing more annoying than trying to find a specific place where a topic was addressed on an hour-plus recording. You know you heard it, you want to hear it again, but where the devil is it?
So I created an index for the class recordings, with the topics discussed, the location, by time, on the recording where you’ll find it, and — where relevant — the corresponding chapter and section in the workbook.
My friend Sherry Essig, whose business Priority Ventures Group is fifteen years old this summer, credits her success to her ability to develop and nurture her powerful network.
I learned a lot from her as I was developing my own networking skills, and she helped me see how it really can be fun and successful instead of a dreadful struggle.
She too started out hating networking. So our conversation is full of real-life tips and techniques, some of which expand on the material I present in the workbook and class recordings, and some of which is uniquely Sherry’s delightfully practical and humorous perspective. I learned even more from her as we talked, so I know there will be plenty of ideas for you to try!
The interview is 55:33 long.
As I keep networking and talking to people about networking, I’ll keep discovering new things.
I’ll accumulate them, and every now and then, on no particular schedule, I’ll send you an email compiling those tips and ideas.
It’s an ongoing totally random encouragement that you’ll receive unexpectedly and that will help keep you on track, focused, and motivated.
And don’t worry; you won’t miss out on any that were sent out before you purchased the package. They’ll all go into a PDF document that you’ll receive with your order.
This is an electronic program only; there is no hardcopy version.
The workbook comes as a PDF file explicitly formatted to be easy to read on your computer screen. The three audio segments are MP3 files, which you can listen to directly from your computer, download to your iPod or other MP3 player, or burn onto a CD to play in your car.
$87.00 covers the workbook, the three audio segments, and the ongoing updates.
In the unlikely event that you don’t get the value you expected, I’ll refund 100% of your investment. No worries, no problem.
And then you get to pass the material on to one friend or colleague whom you think will benefit from the material. They get 100% of the value, you get 100% of your money back. 200% total.
I seriously doubt you’ll want to return it — I’m thoroughly proud of this material and I’m confident that it’ll help you see the results you want. And I’m happy, no matter what, to refund your money in full if it’s not right for you.
Just click the Buy Now button below.
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(Please click the “return to Svaha Concepts” link when you’ve completed the transaction. There’s one more step that will help ensure you receive the download information immediately!) |
I want to be sure you have all the information you need to make the best decision possible. Use the form here to ask me anything at all. It sends an email directly to my personal email in-box, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. (And that’s usually very soon. Certainly with one business day, usually within an hour or two.)