1. Stay positive but cool. Nothing numbs any potential excitement someone else may or may not have about what you’re saying than being negative.
2. Smile. But mix in other facial expressions now and then. Too much smiling hurts and will give you wrinkles. More important, too much smiling is off-putting and creepy.
3. Okay now we’ll do the real advice.
4. Pretend you’re a spy at first and that you can’t tell them what you do but if it comes up don’t lie, just be vague… seriously try it, you’ll be surprised. Also helps with the smiling ‘cause it’s fun and obviously spies are always cool and never over excited so you’ll be firing on all cylinders in that department. Ask what they do (obviously but) and actively listen to what they do, and try to truly think of connections, areas of mutual benefit. If you don’t get it ask. Put effort into it. Don’t take your internal “no I don’t see a connection” as an answer because there is almost always something there.
5. Skip questions that are not useful, these may even taint your overall picture of that person, poisoning any potential opportunity. Here’s an example; go ahead and Google “How to Network” and look at other advice—a lot of it, or all of it, will say something really useless like, “Ask how long they’ve been doing whatever.” Why? Who cares? If it’s relevant they will tell you themselves but if they just started doing it yesterday and they’re good at it, they have a good idea, then who cares how long? Or “What did you do before!!?” That’s also irrelevant most likely, and if it is relevant they will probably bring it up.
6. Ask the most important question… “What do you want to do?”
Most advice about networking in person centers on remembering names and business cards and things like that, which is fine, but all of that will fall in place on its own if you are able to really engage in an interesting conversation.