Photo-A-Day #1593

This is the big season for conferences for me and I know that I’m going to meet many people. The reason I know this is that I don’t mind going up to someone and talking to them and I’ve noticed that people come up and talk to me. So what makes one person be approached over another?

Here are some tips to be more approachable.

1. Be Aware of Your Body Language. At a conference you are out and about away from your computer and in the real world so your body language is a huge factor. Are you smiling, do you look people in the eye? Are you fidgeting? Are you clenched up and tense? As someone connected online so much you might find that you are going to see something on the Twitter screen and want to tweet about it and you’re going to be tempted to whip out your phone and do that even while you are talking to someone. Bloggers often let that go but you should be aware that it can be a major turn off for people talking to you. If it is something that you really want to tweet say to the people that you are talking with, “Did you see that tweet? What do you think of that?” Instead of talking to everyone who isn’t in the room talk to the person right in front of you.

2. Use Your Eyes. Are you looking all around the room and not looking at the people that you are talking to? Do you keep your eyes down, are you glued to your computer, hiding behind a camera or a book? Use those eyes to look into the eyes of the other people in the room. Give them the time and attention that you do your Tweetdeck and Facebook. These are living breathing people who have knowledge that you do not. Every single person you meet have expertise in something that you do not, try and find what that expertise is.

3. Talk Less About Yourself. Listen More About Others Ask questions of the people that you meet. What is your blog? Why did you start it? Probe and really find out who the person is. I did not ask enough questions of everyone that I met at Affiliate Summit and I think I missed out. I tried really hard to do it but I wasn’t always successful. But those times when I was successful it was great and I made some fantastic friends.

4. Smile

5. Approach Others Even if you are not Being Approached. If you are headed to IZEAFest you are really in for a treat because this is a smaller event with a cut off of attendees in the 100s. This means that you should be able to meet at least 1/5 if not more people who are in attendance. But not everyone is going to approach you. You might even think that you are a small fish in a big pond and someone is a big fish that you cannot approach. That is crap, you can approach and talk to everyone because as I stated earlier you can learn something from everyone int he room which means that everyone in the room can learn something from YOU too.

6. Have Fun. These events should not be hard or scary. Everyone I’ve met in affiliate marketing or blogging so far has been so willing to help me out and if you are going to treat everyone as a person and be cool then you are going to have fun.

BONUS – Have You Met Ted? No not the charismatic Ted Murphy, I mean the tactic that Barney uses on How I Met Your Mother. Introduce people and help make those social connections with other people, help out those friends who might be shyer and need a moment for some help. If you are talking to someone who is a blogging about photography and you know another person in the room who is a good photographer then introduce them. Build up quality people and that can help build your credibility.

Do you have any tips for being more approachable?