In my personal experience with networking I have come across many maxims which I plan on sharing with you on this blog but one adage that I feel is invaluable to anyone who is networking to grow their personal or professional network is the following:

 “You can’t network with someone who doesn’t want to network with you.”

Even Dilbert knows of bad body language

After analyzing many of my students’ networking techniques I can tell you that too many people spend too much time trying to network with someone who could care less about their livelihood.

Let’s say you are networking to find a job and you have access to a list of leads whether it is an alumni directory or contacts on LinkedIn. You have to vet these individuals, online and offline, to see if they are serious about wanting to help you with your goals.

How to qualify potential ‘networkees’

Here is my personal checklist of how I qualify people on their level of willingness to network with me. Generally if I feel that the person I am talking with fails two or more of the following then I’m done and move on.

You have a pre-determined amount of time in this world. Don’t waste it talking with someone who doesn’t want to be talking with you.

1)      Body language and eye contact

This obviously only works if you are talking with someone face to face but it is an invaluable vetting tool.

This is fairly easy to gauge. What you must do when entering into a conversation decide if the person wants to be in the conversation with you. This is how you do it:

-         Look at the person’s feet. If they are open towards you then they want to be in the conversation. If their feet are faced away as if both feet are pointing to the side of you or are parallel to you as if he or she is getting ready to leave the conversation then you know they don’t want to be their.

• I always use this technique. If I can tell they don’t want to be in the conversation I will usually focus on capturing their contact information right away to follow up with them later because some people might have to leave for a legitamte reason and just don’t have the time to talk to you.

-         Notice where their eyes are focused. If you feel like they are a frog eyeing up their next meal when they are talking to you then you might want to proceed with the following points because this is a first sign that “They are just not that into you.”

2)      Short answers

Most of the time people like to talk… whether it is about themselves or in the form of offering advice. If you don’t get either type of response then the person you are trying to network with really doesn’t want to be talking to you.

Consider this when asking questions and striking up general conversations.

-         I would ask a two or three questions while in the conversation to gauge where they stand in regards to them wanting to assist with my aspirations. If they continue to be very short with me after two or three questions I will generally just excuse myself from the conversation and move on.

• This is tough to fake unlike the point from above. If they want to network with you but can’t due to time constraints like the above point then it is valuable for you to still capture their contact information and follow up. In this situation though, if they are giving you just one word answers then they are not faking their interest in helping you…they just don’t want to.

3)      Attitudes

This point is pretty self explanatory. We are going to face people in life who either think they are better then you or just lack the social etiquette to be cordial in a conversation. Regardless of what they suffer from you don’t want to waste any more seconds talking to these types of people.

Feel them out first. What you think might be an attitude might just be a very nice person having a bad day. Simply vet the person you are talking with to find out if they have a legitimate attitude or are just having a bad day.

4)      Ask good questions to vet the networkee

This is a simple feeling out process. If I’m receiving a vibe that the person I’m talking with doesn’t really want to be talking with me I will ask a few qualifying questions to confirm if I should continue the conversation.

Some questions to ask might be:

-“It looks like you have someplace you have to be… do you have to go?”

-“When was the last time you mentored someone regarding…?”

-“How much more time would you have to talk about this?”

      5) Polite Persistence

After going through the points above you will have a good idea of whether or not your networkee is truly interested in speaking with you and more importantly helping you get to where you want to be.

I would use the following formula for making the most of your networking time.

-Send a follow up or initial email to your prospect (more on email templates in later posts)

- If you receive no response after a day or two I usually follow up with a phone call and leave a voicemail.

-I’ll wait a day or two then follow up with another email citing that I have reached out the past week and wanted to speak for only a few minutes of their time.

- Lastly, if they don’t respond I will either call one last time a day or two later or move on.

Remember, the above outline is the “persistence” you have to add the “polite” to each message.

-“Thank you for your time.”

-“I know your time is valuable so I’ll be brief.”

-“I would like to speak at your convenience.”

-Etc… just be polite…it’s not rocket science

Don’t Say

-“I’ve reached out five times for you and haven’t heard back. What’s going on?”

-“Why are you not responding?”

-“Call me tomorrow at 10AM or else…”

If you can remember these points, your 80/20 allotment of time and energy for networking will become more efficient.