Welcome to the Uncommon communicator podcast , where we are here to bring enlighten to the topic of communication , moving into today and today's . For today we're going to discuss the UC playbook . Now , this is a new format that I'm bringing to you based on our conversation from our last episode .
We're going to dive deep , a little bit deeper into these topics so we can walk away with a tangible playbook to improve our communication and to improve upon what we heard in our last interview . Now , in my last interview , I interviewed Keith Bailey .
Keith Bailey is a master facilitator , great communicator and a master networker and he gave us some fantastic tips on how to network and we're going to break them down today . One of the things I really walked away from from our last conversation you know I had stated that I'm terrible at this . I just I confessed .
You know I'm terrible at networking , but in reality , we need to understand that we're better than we think we are a lot of times and I found out that I was better at some things that were that were all networking related . Like I'm pretty good at creating a conversation .
I'm pretty good at keeping those conversations going and I have no problem meeting new people . All of those things are important for networking .
Now , one thing I learned from Keith is this 75-25 percent ratio 25 percent of our time we should spend networking with and meeting new people , whereas the other 75 percent is about maintaining and following up on those connections . Now that is where I admitted admittedly , I am very weak at Now .
That is 75 percent of networking , but I was still pretty good at some of it . So always recognize what you're good at first and then all then . Then you can work on the things that you're not good at to improve those percentages . Some of the things we really learned from Keith and this is part of our playbook for today is to have a plan .
Go in with a goal If that goal is simply to meet one person or three people , but go into any of these events saying I'm going to walk away with something . That's one of the most important things we can do in any networking situation . Now Keith also brought us this idea of pen prepare , engage and nurture . First , show up early .
If you're going to prepare , show up early , clear your calendar out and make sure that you can stay in that moment . You don't want to always be answering phone calls and not in that moment when you should be there connecting . So prepare for that event . The next thing is to engage .
You know , always start with a smile but be prepared to bring others into the conversation .
That's part of engagement that I caught was very important is if somebody comes up and Keith and I share this as well If somebody comes into your conversation , first off , they were brave to do that , but always be that gracious person that's going to invite that other person in , even get them up to speed and say , hey , we've been talking about this , you know .
Or maybe make an introduction . But those are the one of the things that I think are very important in any networking situation not to exclude people , bring them into the conversation , bring them up to speed and sometimes even get angst when the other person is continuing to talk and not even acknowledging the person that just showed up .
So , smile , bring those people in . That's engaging . And then this is the probably one of the most important things is to nurture . Back to what I said earlier , if you're committing , say , four hours of networking a month , you want to develop your network . Three hours of it should be spent with connecting with the network you already have .
That's one of the most important things that you can do is to maintain those relationships . So that's the pin . That's one part of our playbook that we received last week is to prepare , is to engage and it's to nurture . It's the pen technique . The next thing that Keith brought in was this idea of conversational threading , and this was very interesting to me .
I love the idea of it . Now , it starts with just a simple question , and one thing that you can do is , if you have these four ideas , to start that simple question like a first , a best , a last or a worst . Hey , is this the first time you've been to this event ? What's the best thing that you like to do on the weekend ?
What's the last thing you did when you were out networking last time ? Or what's the worst thing that happened to you in ? Whatever it might be , if you have those , those are great things . Everybody always has one of those that they can connect with you with A first , a best , a last or a worst .
Those are simple questions that start those conversations and starts that conversational threading and , very important , wait for an answer . Listen for conversational clues . As that person begins to share and elaborate , you might find other things that you connect on .
That's part of creating that thread and keeping that conversation going and then always follow up with open-ended questions . Don't ask questions with yes or no . They should always be questions like how , how would you have done this , what do you think ? Those type of things don't end the conversations with a yes or a no and those are often conversation killers .
And one of the most important things is to keep that cycle of conversation going . Always remain and to always remain unending is to actively and sincerely listen to the conversation . You have to be in it , you have to be involved , you have to be interested with that person .
And that follows up with our final point , which is really what became the UC moment , which is to have honest curiosity . One of the best ways you can move through this world is to have an open curiosity for people , for things . If you really want to know , then things get so much easier .
It's not fake , it's real and people know that and they sense that , and when you are truly interested in somebody , that's a compliment to them . So a quick review of today , today's UC playbook moment . One , use the pen method Prepare , engage and nurture . Next , use conversational threading .
Be able to tie those conversations together and , above all else , and our UC moment for today as well always have an honest curiosity and remember this . Use networking to become a better communicator . That's all I've got . See you , bye .