7 Ways To Gracefully Bow Out Of A Networking Chat
Photo by Kawtar CHERKAOUI on Unsplash
Hey there, hero!
One of my VO Heroes, Linda Graves, asked an excellent question as she watched one of the videos I did on how to engage at networking events.
She wasn’t looking for ways to start a conversation, though.
She was looking for ways to nicely…escape.
Here are 7 ways you can put that, without leaving skid marks.
Hope this helps!
David
Raw YouTube Captioning
hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and recently I’ve done a few videos on
how to operate better I guess is the
best way to describe it when you go to
networking sessions you go to a meet-up
or you go to an industry event or you go
to some sort of a party thrown by a peer
where you’re gonna meet a bunch of
people that may be at different levels
in the industry and we’ve had some
questions about that we talked about how
to start conversations how to determine
whether or not an event is good for you
to go to how to guard your schedule
things like that and it generated a
question from one of my vo heroes Linda
Graves who said do you have any
suggestions for knowing when to move on
to another person or group in the room
and a graceful way to do that well I
actually have seven of them and I and I
use these for years they’ve been
gathered together gathered together by a
III I don’t know if it’s a guy or a
woman but it’s the undercover recruiter
who does what I do for his or her
clients helps them understand how to
operate better when in her case or his
case looking for a job or when they’re
looking to help their clients get
further along in the process of finding
employment so the first thing that I
would suggest is and I’m gonna give you
actual words for this is that you
suggest let’s pick this up at a
different time
right because you want to get around to
do other things and you can say when
you’re when you find a natural break
point in the conversation hey it was
great speaking with you and if I don’t
run into you later I hope to see you at
another event real soon and then just go
you don’t have to like keep adding to it
this is one of those things where less
is better you know all right thank you
very much another one is if the
conversation has been useful to you plan
a follow-up and you can say like this
I’ve got to meet some other people but I
would love to speak
sommore is there awak get your contact
details and we can arrange a meeting you
know you exchange cards and then you say
thank you very much and you move on
you can also shift the focus because
making a statement about wanting to meet
other people can be employed in a number
of different ways I mean you both are
there at the meeting to meet people not
just one or two but enough that it feels
useful a lot in some cases so you might
want to shift the focus just by saying
something as simple as you know it’s
been great to meet you
but I do want to say hello to some other
people here so I hope you enjoy the rest
of the event and I’ll talk to you soon
and then again you just you know smile
and move on you all might also want to
introduce somebody else to kind of take
over for what you were doing you know
maybe that we can get a different
perspective I’d love to introduce you to
John I met John you go grab John and
bring him over and once you start that
conversation you say look I’m gonna
leave you two to get acquainted I’m
gonna be around the party and hopefully
I’ll see you before the night is over
another one would be waiting for a
natural break in the con all of these
are actually for waiting for natural
break in the conversation but to do so
and simply say it was great to meet you
I’d like to enlarge my circle of
acquaintances tonight so I’m gonna do
some more mingling and I’ll talk to you
later giving them sort of an idea of
your goal for the evening I’d like to
enlarge my circle of acquaintances
that’s just a phrase that I love to use
it’s got some poetry to it you know what
I mean you also might turn around and
make it a benefit for them I know you’ve
got some people that you probably want
to meet tonight I don’t want to take up
all your time it was great chatting with
you and I’ll talk to you soon and then
finally you are probably going to be an
event that has refreshments so if
nothing else works it’s easy to say you
know what I am I’m just starving I’m
gonna grab a snack and hopefully I’ll
see you later on and that’s it those are
all ways to extract yourself from
conversations that you want to move on
from not necessarily because they’re
boring or
they’re time-consuming or they’re not
giving you the kind of results that you
want but that just you want to be able
to make good use of your time and nobody
is gonna fault you for saying I would
love to enlarge my circle of
acquaintances so that’s my favorite one
that’s what I love doing all right so do
you have any that you use that we can
help Linda out with let me know in the
comments below has anybody ever said
something to you where you go oh okay
yeah enjoy the party you didn’t feel
like you were being abandoned and also
has somebody ever said something here we
go they just want to get rid of me yeah
that’s all they did there let us know
how you feel about those things because
understanding both sides of that coin is
important
use the comment box below this video if
you want to join our list there’s a box
that says get on the list it’s the very
bottom of the page if you’re watching on
V o heroes com and I would love to have
you as someone who I’m helping with your
journey in voiceover I’m David H
Lawrence the 17th I thank you so much
for watching and I will talk to you
tomorrow.
Great tips, easy to remember and use. For me, one of the things Ive wondered is what do when the person offers little to no break in the conversation. They are into what they are saying so much, that they don’t allow for much reply. This has come up and Ive felt awkward breaking in to find that chance to mingle onward. Perhaps something like, ” hey, I bet we could talk a lot more on this subject, but if its ok to suggest, we only have a limited time here to meet and talk with all these other awesome people in the room. How about we exchange info and continue this another time, so we can connect more with these people tonight? Sorry to interrupt, but I just realized this and didn’t want us to miss out. What do you say?” Would something like that work?. If you have any tips on other ways to back out when there is no opening, let me know. But this is a helpful video for sure. Thank you.
Thank you for answering my question. I understand the concept and will try it out the next chance that I get.
I am slow to start but when I get going the momentum builds so my usual, and necessary, line is, “I don’t want to monopolize your time so I’m going to let your ears cool down a bit while I toddle off to find my next victim.”
Love that! Humor works!