Original subtitles

OK so great.

You found these groups you've found these events that are occurring and that are happening in different

places.

And so that's great but what should you do beforehand.

You just show up at these events and kind of hope for the best.

You can probably already guess I'm going to say no to that.

Look if you're one of those people who's very good at improvising I'm very good at showing up at these

events and and starting conversations with strangers right away then.

Well then you're probably not taking this course because networking is not a problem for you.

But if you are taking this course then I'm assuming that that might be a bit of an issue for you.

And so I found that it's best to prepare beforehand.

So the first thing that I do actually is I look up photos of past events.

Most of the time no matter what the event if it's a professional non-professional whatever it might

be they tend to have photos of past events.

And I like to do this because it sort of gives me a feel of the event of what to expect.

And the main reason I do it is to look at how people are dressed.

I like to you know I want to see if it's casual business casual a bit more formal or not and it kind

of gives me a good idea of what to expect and how I should dress when I show up.

But also of the general feel of the meetings in general and along those lines of not being sure what

to wear.

I've found that it's better to be too elegant than not enough.

So if I am a bit insecure about what to wear and I'm not sure I'd rather be a bit too elegant now a

bit too elegant it's fine.

You don't want to be much too elegant.

If everyone's there in a t shirt and shorts and you show up in a three piece suit with a tie then that's

a bit much too elegant you know.

But on the other hand if you just show up with a shirt and blazer then that could be fine or you can

always take off your blazer.

And I found actually that in terms of elegance if you have a new suit that's freshly pressed and looks

new and you look like a million bucks.

Very often that can be a bit too much.

A lot of these people who attend these events they attend them all the time and someone who really went

through all the nines just to get dressed up for this event sort of stands out and you kind of don't

want to do it in that sense you want to look a bit more like people who attend these events regularly.

And so I would definitely don't use tie clips.

In general I try not to have jewelry of any kind for these events.

This is more in the US.

I noticed in when I'm back in Italy I grew up in Switzerland and Italy that there it's it's kind of

OK you know depending on the situation but in the states generally I have no Julia of any kind.

Nothing flashy or showy and so no tie clips no not even any cufflinks or stuff like that unless it's

unless it's very formal and and so yeah.

And I just try to dress more or less like other people do if I have some sort of doubt I try to dress

a bit more elegant a bit more on the elegant side also because I don't mind looking a bit more elegant

than other people because I tend to find that then I end up looking a bit more like the organizer.

Or like the speaker or you know whatever the event might be because these people tend to be a bit more

elegant.

I don't mind looking like some of the more official people anyway.

Obviously it's a judgment call but that's usually how I feel and what I look into ahead of time.

Another thing and this brings me to the second type of event because there are two types of professional

events I already mentioned this one is just a networking event.

The other one is the event where there's a speaker and these can be a bit different.

We'll get into the differences a bit later on but for now if there is a speaker what I tried to do is

I try to research these whoever is speaking and I try to find something in common with them.

Now this doesn't necessarily have to relate to their speech but I want to find something that I have

in common with them and we'll get into why I want to do this a bit later on.

In essence it's to ask him a question but I want to get into that a bit later on.

For now I try to just research him and find whatever I can in common with this speaker.

Another thing is to get your business cards ready.

And this is something I do and I recommend doing.

I know a lot of people go back and forth saying you don't need business cards you do need business cards

or don't worry about business cards this they in the other.

I think it's just best to have business cards and you know and to get them ready because people are

going to ask you for them and you might as well have them rather than have some weird off the cuff reason

not to have them.

It's a lot easier just to have them.

And so obviously get them ready get them handy and I'll talk a bit more about this as well later on.