Welcome back to the articharm podcast. I'm so excited to be back from Chicago, Johnny.

I certainly loved it and I think we took the last of their good weather. However, I did need a good run after eating

a side Chicago food for three days. That's right. We were in Chicago working with one of our executive clients.

We had a lot of fun and I always love working one on one. You really get to go deep into these concepts that we talk about here on the podcast.

Absolutely. I love our training one on one group programs and we're now doing corporate training. That's right. So if you want us to come to your office and help with team building, productive culture and conflict resolution, shoot us an email at a J at the articharm.com.

That's right. And specifically for networking, we got a ton of questions about tips and tricks. So we decided to sit down and put together a little networking guide for you.

This is our free gift. Johnny and I got some great strategies in there. So if you'd like a networking guide to take it even to the next level, head on over to the articharm.com slash grow and get our free PDF report on how to become a better networker. Now, of course, welcome back to our month on networking.

The articharm podcast is all about showing you actionable tips and strategies on how to better connect socially boost your emotional intelligence and navigate social behavior. And of course, that also means networking.

Last week, we discussed two reasons why networking is so important and how it serves a different function than your normal social circle.

We also touched on a couple common misconceptions about networking. And that was laying the foundation for today's in depth look on networking.

We're going to give you a whole new set of techniques and do's and don'ts that you can start using right away.

We're going to talk about what to do before the event to prepare yourself, how to handle to yourself at those events. And of course, the follow up, which is the key moment.

So we're excited to dig in. Now, before we get into the how of connecting people, we want to talk about what to do before you go out networking. This is the prep work. This is what you do to get yourself ready to meet people.

And I know a lot of us overthink it. When it comes to prep work, we think we need this magical pitch and this crazy elevator magic show to get someone's attention and get them to buy right then and there on the spot.

It certainly isn't myth and nothing could be further from the truth. So we'll hopefully iron some of those things out today.

And we want you to view every social event as a networking event. So don't just limit yourself to conferences, symposiums, classic networking events.

But think about anytime you're out and about it is a networking event.

Well, anything that you put a bunch of pressure on yourself about and then also you have like a time and place where this is supposed to go down and you're supposed to come out on top or you're a loser, right. It's the black or white thinking.

Right. And it's like, oh, on this date, I have a networking event. I have my new thing going on. I need to plug it and I need to get some marketing for right. And then all of a sudden, you have that date crossed on the calendar and you've just you're you begin to fixate on it.

Why wouldn't you fixate on it? You've marked it on your counter. Now there's thoughts towards it. And now everything hinders on whether or not this goes well.

But the actuality is if you understand how networking works, you're always in a you always have them. I and a mind for it.

And understanding that when we view everything like a networking event, we get much more practice actually chatting people up and getting more comfortable in these situations.

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