4 Ways to Meet the Speaker at an Event & Spark a Relationship

Hey everyone, this is Self Made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann and today I'm going to give you four things to do to make sure you meet the speakers at an event. I'm going to teach you how to be noticed by the speakers before you even go talk to them. What to say and how to leave a lasting impression. If you're anything like me, I go to events and I see people speak and I'm like, wow, I love their story, I would love to meet them. But then when it comes time to meet them, I don't know what to say. There's a lot of people bombarding them and sometimes I just chicken out. These tips have given me the courage to go out there, meet these people and actually build meaningful, lasting relationships. Alright, so the first tip I have for you is be an engaged participant. Once I was giving a presentation to hundreds of people and the way typically people listen to presentation is they sit still and they have a straight face. But there was one woman in the audience, she had her eye contact perfect and she was smiling and she was nodding as I was saying things. And I went up to her and I said, you know, you were so engaged the entire presentation and it really gave me a jolt of confidence. I want to say thank you. And she said, you know what? I saw you were a little nervous. I wanted to be your advocate and you rock. And it's amazing. Her being that engaged made her stand out in a sea of hundreds of people. So this is something you should do when you see a speaker on stage. A lot of us, when there's a one way conversation, we have a neutral face. But just know that when you are the person who's engaged, who is acting as if it is a two way conversation, boom, their eyes are on you and they really appreciate it. And when you go up and talk to them later, there is a good chance that they will recognize you and there's also a chance that they will come up to you and thank you. Now, the second thing to do to meet conference speakers is to take photos and videos. I only have photo and video evidence of a very small fraction of the speaking engagements I've ever done. It is an epidemic of large proportions. A massive drought. Some of the bigger events might have like professional photographers and videographers, but anything smaller than that, if you could go there and just snap a few photos when they're presenting or on a panel or get a few videos, I mean, our phones these days are pretty exceptional cameras. And then go up to the speaker afterwards and say Hey, I snapped a few great photos of you. Would you like me to email them to you? They would freaking love that. And you get their email and you send them the photos and you smack a little compliment in there as well. And already your relationship is off to a great start. You're adding value. You're giving them specific compliments about why you enjoy their presentation. And it's all coming from a giving place. Sliding into tip number three is do a quick intro. Here's a scenario for you. So someone does a talk, and they come down and now they're in the crowd, and immediately they're fully surrounded, like the FBI is onto them. Or there's the other situation where they've been talking to the same person for a while. And in either case, you're like, when am I going to have my chance to talk to this person? You know, the clocks tick tock. What you do in this case is you pop your business card out and you just gotta go for it. Okay? So you beeline to the speaker and you say to whoever they're talking about, hey, I'm so sorry. Just one second. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your presentation. My name is Madeline Mann. I would love to stay in contact. Here's my card. Thank you so much. We'll be in touch. And sorry, you guys, thank you so much for giving me a second. Have a good one. So you didn't get to make a meaningful connection with them, but what you did do is you got to actually meet them. You gave them your card, and now when you reach out to them, it technically won't be a cold outreach. You'll say, hey, great meeting you last night. And then you can follow up with whatever you want to talk about. And the fourth tip is to do your research and find a way to add value. Now, this is truly the mic drop thing to do to get the attention of a speaker, because everyone's been coming up to them, ask them questions, asking for advice. And if you walk up to them and say, hey, so I know you're working on these things and I, you know, I have some resources that could be helpful to you. You could say, I know this person who runs this podcast. I think you'd be a great fit for it. Would you like me to reach out for you? Or I have these processes that I built for my company that I think might be a great fit for yours. Would you like me to send you an outline of it and see if it'd be a great fit or whatever it is. They will then go attention straight to you. They're like wow, this person is a powerhouse. They're adding value. I want to get to know them and suddenly you have already a meaningful relationship. This is what I call adding 60 seconds of value which is a very powerful way to go about networking and really doesn't take that much effort. So the next video for you to watch is High impact networking where I talk more about 60 seconds of value. This will revolutionize the way you network and it's really weirdly easy and if you start implementing these behaviors I'm just going to give you a warning right now. People are going to want to help you tenfold. So look out. I'll link that video on this screen and in the description for you to watch next. Make sure you like this video as well as subscribe to the channel. Thanks so much everyone. Wi Fi high five.