Expanding Your Comfort Zone

How do you expand your comfort zone? Unless you're a member of the Polar Bear Club, you probably want to ease into a new situation. Networ king is an activity that can create a lot of anxiety. Here are several tips for expanding your comfort zone without feeling like you're about to jump into a frozen lake.

• Use the Buddy System. Ask one of your more experienced or outgoing networking friends to accompany you to an event. They break the ice for you and give you the opportunity to watch and emulate their networking techniques. Just make sure they don't get carried away and leave you behind.
• Plan Ahead. Research the event, find out who's attending, and ask the host about the agenda. Knowing what to expect goes a very long way toward helping you feel comfortable in a new situation.
• Take Small Steps. Start out small. Don't expect to change habits of many years in one networking event. Luncheons, speed networking, and trade shows are all events where there is networking, but it's in small doses even within a larger event.
• Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. The classic self-help novel by Susan Jeffers provides wonderful advice and strategies for any situation that causes you to feel fear. Her first and most important point is that you'll never get rid of the fear of doing something by waiting. Fear does not magically go away on its own unless there's an underlying medical or psychological condition that you're getting treated for. Even so, many treatments for phobias include careful exposure to what the person fears.

Expanding your networking sphere of activity and influence by trying these simple strategies.

Where Are the Edges of Your Comfort Zone?

The Clovis Chamber mixer tonight was held at one of the best AAA baseball stadiums in the country, in their skybox/lounge/bar. We had the entire place to ourselves. On one hand, I was a little concerned that hundreds would show up for the chance to have fun in our very popular Grizzlies baseball stadium. On the other hand, I wondered if the location would be a problem.

See, the mixer was held ... in Fresno. Downtown Fresno. I wondered if people would hesitate to drive "all the way downtown." I wondered if they would not be willing to stretch their comfort zone quite that far. I wondered if our streak of extremely well attended mixers would suffer a bit from being "all the way downtown" which is located a few miles past the edge of many people's comfort zones.

Are you limited by your comfort zone? I think I fool myself a little bit by telling myself that I'm not limited. I go outside of my comfort zone all the time... but do I? I've done enough networking for long enough that I feel pretty comfortable much of the time, even at new events because there are usually people I know. Hm, maybe if I feel comfortable, I'm not out of my comfort zone.

How do you know? Do you have to feel uncomfortable to know you're outside of your comfort zone? Or can you get comfortable enough with feeling a bit stretched and out of place that it no longer feels uncomfortable?

Photo by Rightee on Flickr

Tortoises, Hares, Greyhounds and Horses

Let's keep the analogy going. Chris from Referral Key commented on yesterday's post that horses require a lot more resources to keep going than rabbits or turtles. And as the very sad death of the 21 polo ponies in Florida shows, they are delicate creatures subject to many ills.

The point is that you need to pick a pace you can maintain and stick with it. If you can only manage a tortoise-slow pace on your networking (i.e. a very small amount at a time), but you can do it every day you are still in better shape than an inconsistent rabbit. Sure, you're better off to be like a swift greyhound, but how long can you keep up that pace? Plan for a networking strategy that you can maintain for the long run.

Photo by CelticBlade from Flickr

Are You the Tortoise or the Hare?

Remember the fable of tortoise and the hare? The moral to the story was that slow and steady wins the race over fast but inconsistent. It's undeniably true in networking that consistent effort over time is going to get much better results that short bursts of participation followed by long silence. But we hate the idea because we want results now!

(Photo by Bad Rabbit Inc.)

It's one of the reasons for the controversy (and excellent ongoing conversations) about the recent study by the ESR Group. No one is going to get a quick sales fix from social media.

Wait! Except some people have gained excellent results, maybe even sales results. What are they doing differently? Besides having a clear strategy, building community, and using it as a communication tool, there's something else the successful marketers are doing with their social media marketing.

They brought a horse to the turtle/rabbit races. The rabbit is fast, but inconsistent, good at short bursts of effort followed by long rest periods. The turtle is really slow, but he keeps going on and on and on.

The horse is fast, powerful, and has great endurance (we're talking about desert-bred Arabians not Quarter Horses). Those who are successful in the social media market entered it strongly, moved quickly and kept going strongly.

Wouldn't you rather be the horse in this race?