Will Kintish is a networking expert, who will share a priceless knowledge and experience with you today. There have been changes to our networking world in the past few years. We had to get use to Zoom meetings, not seeing each other in person. So, how do we get back to face-to-face meetings now?
Wojciech: The question of the day, have you returned to face-to-face meetings? How it's been so far?
We're going to talk about a bit of zoom online networking and a bit about face-to-face networking and going back to face-to-face meetings. Have you got back to face-to-face meetings?
We have amazing guest here with us whom I consider my mentor. Will Kintish has been successful all over the world teaching people how to network. I remember him back in the days when I was a student. For me it's a massive privilege to have him here with me.
Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me. Could share a couple of things about you and how do you help your clients.
Will Kintish: Good morning! If I was going to be embarrassed now would be the moment. But I’ll take the praise and say thank you.
I can talk to you for the next six hours, but I don’t think our audience is going to stay very long. I’ve been working and watching everybody I’ve been working with for over 57 years now. My career has been one pure accident because when I was 16 years old my headmaster at school told me I wasn’t very clever and told me I shouldn’t go to university. ‘Go get a job’, he said. ‘Why don’t you be an accountant?’
I didn’t have any parental help because my mother had just died, and my father didn’t know what to say to me. So, you know what I did for the next 36 years? I trained, I qualified, and I practised as a chartered accountant. Then 21 years ago an opportunity arose. I left the accountancy and all I’ve been doing for 21 years is showing people how to become effective and confident networkers.
I'll continue doing it. I have no plans to ever retire, so when I’m 103, you will perhaps invite me back again.
Wojciech: Amazing. Did you have any support from your family and friends when you initially transitioned to networking? My family back in Poland, when I started doing networking, they thought that I’m some dodgy dealer. My mom said to me: ‘son, you used to be a lawyer and who are you now?’
Will Kintish: I was working for a medium-sized accountancy firm, and I was a senior partner when the company was taken over by a big national firm. A year later, they said to me that I do not look happy and that we could go our own ways. They offered me some money and I went home to Mrs Kintish.
I’ve been married to my wife for 50 years, and then I said I’m leaving accountancy to go and be a trainer. She’s always been very supportive – she said, ‘well if that’s what you’d like to do then fine’.
And that's what I did and here we are today, still showing people how to network.
Wojciech: Thank you so much for sharing this. Have you got back to face-to-face meetings?
Will Kintish: When Covid appeared in March 2020, and we had to stop going networking, I felt as though my oxygen had been taken away because I absolutely loved walking into that room. Fortunately, as you know, you and I were both in Manchester. Five weeks ago, I moved down to London to be with my children and grandchildren to watch them grow and blossom.
I actually went to a seven o’clock networking event, not BNI, in Rickmansworth last week and I absolutely loved it. The fact that you can talk to people in 3D and not 2D makes all the difference. To shake hands, to look people in the eye, to watch their body language… Okay, we can watch the body language on screen, but at the end of the day, there is nothing to beat face-to-face meetings.
Wojciech: One thing that came to my mind, during the pandemic, you were teaching people how to work a zoom, and now we're back to working a room. Could you explain some basics of working the room?
Will Kintish: It starts at the very beginning. Everybody from the age of two networked. Networking is just talking to people, so I’ve been learning and teaching people how to talk to each other for over 20 years.
Networking is talking with a view to building relationships.
The three key steps to building relationships are: know, like and trust. We can get to know people online, and perhaps we can get to like them a bit and trust them a bit online. In face-to-face meetings, there’s very little difference, however, if you’re on Zoom, you have to make sure that the management of your screen is good. I had a one-to-one with a guy from the Middle East yesterday, and I couldn’t see him. He had his lighting behind him, and I couldn’t see him well. If you want to do serious business with people, you have to be seen. You must have good lighting and sound. Also, make sure to dress for the part.
The big difference is that a lot of people struggle with walking into the room. Whereas, there should not be many fears doing networking on the Zoom because all they’re doing is having one-to-one or in a group situation. I know that some people are nervous about going on the Zoom, but I bet it’s a tiny percentage compared to people who are invited to a physical event and who don’t like working the room. I know from my experience; most people would rather eat their left arm than ever go networking in a physical space. They just don’t like doing it.
Do you want to know, why they don't like doing it?
- Fear of rejection – will anyone talk to me.
- Fear of the unknown – what’s going to happen.
- Fear of failure – will I be caught out as a bit of a fraud.
How to overcome those three basic fears?
Will anyone talk to me? Well, I don’t care if people don’t talk to me. My job as a good networker is to go and talk to them! The strongest piece of advice I give to anybody, including myself, who is a bit nervous: get there early. I hate walking into a room that is already full of people, all talking to each other. Particularly if I don’t know anybody, so why should I put myself through the pain and heartache of having to do that when I don’t need to. It’s all the case of planning your diary for the day. Get there 10 minutes before it starts.
Wojciech: And you can feel like a host.
Will Kintish: Absolutely. You either talk to the hosts if they’re there or there are one or two other early birds, and you talk to them. And it’s so easy! I don’t know whether you’ve heard this voice, this fear of rejection.
Fear is not a real word – it's an anagram – it is false expectations appearing real.
Once you go up to somebody at an event and say, hello can I introduce myself, and ask them about themselves, nobody is ever going to reject you. Except when they’re really rude people, and there’s only a tiny percentage of that.
Wojciech: You call them ‘networking hooligans’.
Will Kintish: The rude ignorant person or sometimes I call them the rude ignorant pig, people, who perhaps look over your shoulder, don’t show any interest in you – just move on from those people. Don’t waste your time.
Every room, wherever you live, that you’ve ever been in and every room you’re ever going to go into for the rest of your life is always formatted in exactly the same way. Wojciech, you know this, but maybe other people don’t, there are only six formats of people in a room. There are three groups that will be very welcoming and three groups that won’t be that welcoming.
The three welcoming groups: an individual standing on their own – they are waiting for you to go and talk to them; then couples – people who stand in an open format; and trios – three people, who stand in a quasi or a semicircle. The body language of those three groups is saying to you ‘come and join us’.
The three groups that aren’t as easy to get into are the closed twos, where people are facing each other; the close threes, where you have a triangle; and the groups of four or more where they are looking in at each other.
Those people are saying at this moment ‘we're very comfortable, thank you’.
The reason you get there early is that the later you get there, the more the groups will be in closed format.
If you want more information, send me an email for my 28-page pocket guide of how to work a room, and it will describe all this in cartoon format.
Finally, fear of failure. Most of my work is with young professionals, people in the academic, technical, professional, financial worlds, and they are very clever people. Yet, for whatever reason it doesn’t matter, they’re worried that they might get caught out, asked a question that they don’t know the answer to, and they feel inadequate. It’s called an imposter syndrome.
Remember, even if you're a brand-new trainee lawyer or an accountant or just starting your job, as long as you're a nice person, you have as much right to be in that room as everybody else.
You walk in there, and you say yourself: I am a nice person, I’m going to be courteous tonight, I’m going to be polite, and I will be respectful. Then ask good questions of the other person. People love talking about themselves. Your job as a good networker is to let them talk. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.
My journey into accountancy from accountancy started when I went to the Dale Carnegie course. Dale Carnegie wrote the very famous book How to win friends and influence people, written 75 years ago. One of the things that he said was to let the other person do most of the talking, be a good listener, and encourage others to talk about themselves and their favourite subject. And if after the end of a conversation, they don’t know anything about you, but you know all about them, they’ll think you’re the most interesting person!
Now talking of failure – let me introduce you to TED.
Ted is an acronym. The three keywords that you need to learn and use when you get into conversations, and you’re not fully in control, or you don’t know the answer. You don’t back out of the conversation; you give somebody a command. If somebody says something to you, and you don’t get it, say: Tell me what you mean about that. Explain what you mean by that. Describe this for me. I’ve never come across people thinking you’re stupid if you say that, and they will respect you because you are showing a vulnerability. That is how we overcome the fear of failure – by putting our hands up and saying I don’t know.
Wojciech: Nice one. Great to see TED back in action! Do you think we’ll be back to face-to-face meetings fully now?
Will Kintish: Personally, I love face-to-face meetings but if I had a crystal ball, it would say that for the rest of our lives, we are going to do a mixture, a hybrid of both. Now I’m down in London, I want to keep in touch with my contacts in Manchester. The obvious way to do it is on Zoom. I’m not going to drag up to Manchester all the time.
The one piece of advice I give to everybody: if you would like to start a new serious business relationship where money will exchange in due course, I do believe we have to meet the people in the same space, but after that, I think we can go back to Zoom.
Wojciech: Yes, it makes absolute sense. An interesting comment from Meg: it's the other way around for me. Zoom meetings are more stressful than networking and physical space. Have you come across cases like that?
Will Kintish: Very rarely. Let me say this to you, the introvert is a better networker! Why? Because you are more interested in the other person, you think before you talk. Whereas people like me and Wojciech sometimes talk before, we think and that’s one of the big differences between the introvert and the extrovert. I bet this if you do go to a networking event, if you are a true introvert, when you go home, I bet you’re absolutely worn out from having to work hard at it. Whereas me and Wojciech, we go home, and we’re on a high. We’ve had the most wonderful time; we can’t get to sleep if it’s an evening event. On the other hand, introverts are exhausted.
Wojciech: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.
Will Kintish: When we went to school, we were judged on the quality of our answers. It’s called exams or tests, but now we’re judged on the quality of our questions. When you start asking people questions. Whether It’s on zoom or a physical meeting, make sure you look at people’s eyes, when they are answering. We can all lie with our words, but we can’t all lie with our tone of voice or our body language. If you can tell that they’re not interested, then move on or change the subject.
Four areas of questions are the icebreaker question. Even if it’s a business event, never ask the first question “what do you do”. Always start off with something else. Get the relationship the personal relationship started –the business comes later. I would say: Hello, nice to meet you. Where have you travelled from? or What made you attend this conference?
Another area is business questioning. When you ask people about their career or their business, break it down under three headings: ask them about them, what they do; and then go into past questions: what made you become an accountant or how did you get into that, what made you start manufacturing teddy bears. For the future questions: where do you see your career or where do you see your business going in the next 18 months. Always put a timescale on your questions about their business.
There are three types of questions – the third one is the glue!
The third type of question is glue. The third area of questioning is small talk. The non-business talk starts to build strong relationships. Ask here’s a great question: what do you do in your spare time, what are your favourite hobbies, what do you love doing.
You can ask them about family, but it comes with a Kintish government warning, NEVER EVER ask of a stranger two questions: are you married and have you got children. When you ask the wrong person the wrong question on a wrong day, you cause a lot of upset and embarrassment.
Finally, the follow-up questions. In my view, a networking criminal is a person who doesn’t follow up! Here are some follow-up questions: that’s interesting, let’s meet and talk more about this, shall we exchange business cards or how do you feel about me giving you a call. Get their business card, look at it, find something to comment on.
All you need to do is listen to what their problem is because at the end of the day if you are in the advice-giving business, which most of us are, all you’re going to do is give your advice and hopefully make them more money. For those of you who struggle about following up, remember this: by following them up, you are doing them a massive favour. You are giving them a gift.
How do we ensure that we don't annoy people by following up?
It’s as simple as this: all the way through the process, we ask permission. Is it okay if we keep in touch? Don’t give up too soon. If your knowledge experience and expertise will add value to their business, you’re doing them a favour. I know this sounds crazy, but you’re going to charge them a thousand, but the result of your service will make them 10 000 pounds by improving their business.
Don't give up! We don't like hearing ‘no’ but no is the second-best answer after ‘yes’
It’s the bit in the middle, the uncertainty, that’s the worst. If they say no, go back six months later because the circumstances could have changed.
Wojciech: Absolutely. When I get a no, I always have this in my in my mind. There is a yes somewhere.
Will Kintish: The time that they will never do business with us is when for whatever reason they’ve decided they don’t like us. The three key steps to building relationships is know, like and trust. People buy people. People like people, who are like them.
There’s nobody on this call today that doesn’t have competition. We’ve all got competition and if at the end of it they decided, they don’t like us, they’ll go and find somebody else to do the business with.
The like in my view is the most important part of networking. The business will always come later.
Wojciech: I got to tell you something. I’m over the moon because you shared so much with us today, thank you. It's worth thousands of pounds. I remember, when I attended Will's workshop, I was already a pretty good networker but the stuff that I learned and some of the stuff that was mentioned today took my network into a next level.
The cool thing, Will, is that we can apply it on Zoom, in the breakout room or on LinkedIn. I've been using these questioning patterns quite actively on LinkedIn as well and it works!
My next question is about LinkedIn. How do you use LinkedIn? Because what annoys me is that many people still treat LinkedIn as a recruitment platform. For me LinkedIn is a networking platform and I’m so glad that i can help my clients to get more business from social media.
Will Kintish: I don’t know how many people know this, but the worst thing you can do on LinkedIn is sending somebody an invitation without a personal note. If I’m going to invite someone to my network, I won’t just send the automatic Connect. I will put a personal invitation and a note.
If you’re trying to connect with someone using a smartphone, go to their profile and do not press the connect button because it goes straight through without a personal invite. You will find more buttons or you’ll find a button with three dots on it. If you go on there, somewhere on that little menu, it will say personalize the invitation. That’s why a lot of people don’t personalize the invitation because they don’t know which buttons to press.
If any of you do invite me to LinkedIn after today, I’m going to do something a bit old-fashioned. I’m going to write back to you and say thank you. What’s more, I’m going to ask if I can help you in any way. Have a look at my contacts and if the circumstances are right, I will introduce you to my contacts because the first principle of networking is to be kind, helpful and to share. That’s part of the liking.
If I'm asked to do a 20-minute presentation for free, I’d give away my best information about working the room.
Because people think wow if I got that for nothing, what happens if I start to pay for it. Don’t be mean with your knowledge, give it away. There will be people in the world, who will take advantage of you, and this is what I want you to do: shake it off. Even if they don’t pay you, they may recommend you to other people, who aren’t quite as mean.
To build a relationship from scratch on LinkedIn, make sure you understand the management of your invitations and then regularly post valuable information.
Wojciech: Amazing. I have to tell you that this is a great session. This interview is going to be on YouTube.
Use this opportunity to connect with Will Kintish because he's sharing so much knowledge on LinkedIn but remember about personal invite.
Will Kintish: Thank you for setting this up for us.
Wojciech: My pleasure! Thank you so much, Will, it's been a pleasure.
You will find this interview on YouTube – you’ll find more useful tips on the Life Networker channel.
