C (3:22)
And what's true is how you stand really does change who you meet. And so what you want to do is look around the room and figure out where do you start. So I'm going to make it a little bit easier for everyone. Now, I understand that many people listening to this are beyond this point, and I get that a lot of people really understand how to network and they go to networking events where they know a lot of people. But it's important for you to recognize that there are many people that are presently having the experience I just gave. And if you recognize them and that situation, you can actually be a better networker yourself by understanding the concepts of open twos and open threes. So let's go back to the scenario of walking into the room. I've attached to this podcast transcript, a graphic to the podcast that you can download. It is from Networking Like a Pro, the book I wrote, second edition. And the first slide is where do I start? Where do I start? And it's a view from above, looking down. This could be, you know, just maybe one small corner of the room where you entered. It could be many, many more people around you than what this shows. But the idea is you walk in a room and you see from above all of these groups of people talking to each other, mixing and mingling. Now, the second slide is a slide called Closed twos or Closed threes. And if you're listening to this podcast and you don't have the slides in front of you, imagine that you're, you know, on a balcony looking down on everyone. And there's two. And by the way, Richard Quest with cnn, I talked to him about this technique and that's exactly what he did on his CNN broadcast as he stood on a balcony looking down at the audience and he said, oh, look at that. There's a close two. There's an open three, there's. And so he. You can see it looking down, but a close two are two people standing perpendicular to each other having a conversation. A close three are three people. So it's like a Triangle from looking down from above. And it's really hard to break into those conversations, especially if you don't know any of those people. And so what I recommend is that if you're going to a group, you don't know a lot of people. You want to look for the open twos and open threes, which is the third diagram that I have in the transcript. And I'll describe it for those of you listening who don't have access to the Transcript. An open 2 looks more like a V. V as in Victor. There are two people standing askew, which makes it really easy to walk up and introduce yourself. An open three looks a little bit like a U. There's an open spot. An open four would be like, you know, a huddle with an opening or a five or a six. You know, the more people in. Just having an open spot is so incredibly important. And now if you go back to the first slide, if you look at slide number one and you look down at it, the, the bottom left is the person or the is the open two, the top right or the open three. Those are the, those are the kinds of things that you want to be looking for. And of course individuals walking around. But those open groups are what you want to be looking for because you can walk up and have a conversation with those people very easily. Now, if you are running a B and I chapter or even if you're a member of a B and I chapter, if you really want that group, the visitors who come to that group on an in person meeting, you want them to feel that you're very open and easy to talk to. Always, always, always, always stand in open twos, open threes and open groups. I had a chapter who did a survey of visitors and asked them what they their honest opinion of the chapter. And the overwhelming opinion from visitors was they weren't real friendly. They really seemed to like each other a lot, but they didn't really reach out to the visitors. And so the visitors are like, well, what can we do to improve that? And I said, start with this. Just do this and we'll add layers to this down the road, but just do this. So the chapter really made an effort to always stand in open twos, open threes, open groups, so that when a visitor came in and the visitor host was walking them around, or if the visitor broke loose from the visitor host and was walking around, it was easy to strike up a conversation. And the surveys then from the visitors came back significantly different. They had comments like, you know, I can't Quite put my finger on it, but it was just so easy to talk to people in this group. Very, very friendly group. And they hadn't done anything else other than do the open twos, open threes concept. So if you are new to a group and you walk in, look for those. If it is a group that you're a member of, always try to make sure to stand like that. To stand in open twos, open threes. And that's what I mean when I say. And it was your suggestion. I love the title. How you stand changes who you meet. Because if you have an open stance, you're going to meet a lot of people that you may not have had an opportunity to meet in the past one time. It's so funny. I did my whole keynote presentation, Priscilla, and at the end I was signing books, meeting people. It was about a half hour later I met one member and we're having a conversation and he looks at me and he says, and he points down at our feet like someone's looking from above. And we were standing perpendicular to each other. And he said, we're in a closed too. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. Okay. So we opened it up. Here's the amazing thing, Priscilla. Immediately, and I mean immediately, a third person came in. And as soon as the third person came in, we looked at each other and we said close three and we laughed and opened it up. And immediately a fourth person came in. We opened it a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, an eighth. It was a large group very quickly and all we did was open our stance and be friendly. And it really makes an incredible difference. This is such a subtle but significant technique in embracing a relationship building component of your networking process. Open twos, open threes. I highly recommend it. I'll have graphics from networking like a pro in this podcast. What are your thoughts, Priscilla?
