Week 69 - How Do I Join A Conversation? 🙈

Hey my friend, have you ever walked into a conference, looked around at all the people talking to each other... and thought: "How on earth do I join one of these conversations?" 😅

Today, let's talk about why the best conversations rarely start with the perfect introduction, but with preparation, curiosity, and one small "hello" that can completely change your day 🤓

Try This Yourself

A few days ago, I talked to my friend Markus, and he shared some thoughts about the Freelance Unlocked. We ended up talking about how to approach people in real-life settings, and he told me one thing I can totally relate to:

“I find it always a bit challenging to find a way into a conversation at a conference. Some people are already talking – do I join? Others stand around by themselves – should I talk to them because they don't talk to anyone else?”

And he also said he did some research and preparations, and here is what he found:

“When people stand in a closed circle, that's a bagel: body language suggests no room for additional people. When they're standing around like a croissant, though, that's an invitation!”

(Actually, this reminded me of The Open Door Principle: sometimes people literally leave the door open for a conversation, but we simply don't notice it 🤷‍♂️)

The fun part is that I’ve never researched exactly how to make the first contact; it happened to me accidentally through practice, and still I thought, what a great idea to do such research beforehand!

I analyzed how it usually worked for me, and that’s exactly it! When people are kinda creating a fort, and you only see their backs, it feels like you’re an invader trying to break their armour, and it rarely works well (still, sometimes it works). But when people have some open space, why not join them? 😉

Also, I heard about a tactic where the nose of your shoes is pointed: when it is pointed at someone, it signals subconscious interest, attention, or engagement.

Well, I don’t really know whether it’s the reality or not. Still, sometimes I consciously do it just in case someone believes in it, so they’ll see I’m interested and engaged 😅

I bet there are many more neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) tricks, and you can definitely check them online. Still, I’m a huge believer in preparation. So when I go to any in-person event, here is what I do:

• Connect with interesting speakers and participants and schedule coffee chats before the event.

• Meet them at the event.

• Search for eye contact during the event.

The easiest part is connecting with speakers because they go to the event literally to connect with others through their presentations, so when someone makes the connection beforehand, it’s even better.

How to do it? Find a speaker whose topic interests you. Check their profile and what they’ve recently been talking about. Send them a personal message like:

“Hey Name, I saw you’re speaking at Freelance Unlocked on the topic “bla-bla”, and I’m very much interested in it, and can’t wait to learn from you there! Also, I saw you wrote in your latest post about “bla-bla”; it already gave me huge value, so thank you very much! And yeah, let’s connect and meet you soon!”

Do not try to be someone you’re not; be a genuine you and write exactly how you feel about the topic, and there is a huge chance you’ll connect.

And that's exactly the Authenticity Principle from Week 68: people don't connect with perfectly crafted networking messages. They connect with humans.

During the conference, find them before their speech, remind them of you, listen to their speech, and continue the conversation after.

Voila! You already have at least one great connection!

Talking about participants, well, they also come there to learn about stuff and also to meet someone. And there is a huge chance they have the same struggles as you: they want to connect with people but don’t know how.

This also connects beautifully to The Alignment Principle: you're not trying to meet everyone; you're simply increasing the chances of finding your people.

So research LinkedIn (or internal community and/or app if the conference has it), find those who’re talking about going, send them connection requests, ask if they’d like to meet and talk, exchange WhatsApp numbers, meet at the conference. The initial message can go like this:

“Hey Name, I saw you’re coming to Freelance Unlocked and also you’re working in the “bla-bla” niche. Well, me too, so I would be happy to connect and meet very soon in real life! If you’d like to meet, please accept my request and let’s continue the conversation!”

After that, you have their LinkedIn and most likely phone number or email, so ping them when you’re at the conference, ask them where they are (or send them a photo of where you are standing), meet, and talk! Easy-peasy! 😉

And finally, the eye contact part: even if you haven’t done any preparations, there will be hundreds of people wandering around the conference waiting for someone to talk to them. And you can identify them immediately!

Look people in the eyes: if they look away, okay, move on. If someone makes eye contact with you for a few seconds, you can already say “hi” and start a conversation like this:

“Oh, hey, my name is Yurii. What’s your name?” (if they don’t have a badge)

If they have a badge, it can be like this:

“Hey Markus, I’m Yurii, nice to meet you! How are you enjoying the conference so far?”

After that, use questions like: “What brought you here? Have you listened to any speeches already?” or “What are the speeches you’d like to listen to? Why?”

And then you’ll just go with the flow, start talking about what each of you does, what are some challenges you both face, etc.

One more extra bonus move: print out a T-shirt with a meme from your industry, and on the back you can even write something like: “Ask me about community building!"

You’ll definitely meet people coming to you with words: “Oh, I like your T-shirt”, or something like that, and this way you don’t even have to do the connection work; they’ll find you 😉

I call this the Curiosity Principle 🤓

Friendworking isn't about becoming the loudest person in the room. It's about sparking a genuine interest in the people around you, and some connection they cannot understand yet, but feel immediately.

tl;dr The best conversations don't begin with the perfect opener. They begin with curiosity, preparation, and the courage to say "hi."

Expand Your Mindset

On a personal note, my kid recently asked me: “Why do pigeons and ducks have necks, and crows or swifts don’t?” and actually I didn’t know what to answer and had to do some extra research 😅

(if you’re curious, they all have necks, but pigeons need them for balancing, depth perception, and stabilizing vision while walking, ducks need to probe deep into water or mud to forage, and swifts have tightly tucked necks to reduce drag during high-speed dives 🤓)

Or recently we talked in the Freelance Unlocked community about some recruiters’ requirements of having 6 years of experience with Claude, which is fun unless you’re talking about a Mercurian year that lasts around 88 days 😁

Or, do you know how Velcro or a zipper works? (I know already 😜)

It’s all about being curious about the world around you because, first, you’ll see the world from different views and notice amazing interconnections, and secondly, it’ll help you generate more ideas and be more creative.

And maybe that's why curiosity is such a superpower. It doesn't only help us learn. It helps us connect. Because curious people always have another question to ask.

Also, you’ll improve your storytelling skills and be able to continue almost every conversation, which will definitely help you to connect more on a human level!

By the way, go check the book On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz, which is exactly about being able to see the world through the eyes of different experts, and the world around you will never be the same again 😉

Actually, this reminds me of Week 52 (People Are Different, People): every person sees the world differently. So the more perspectives you understand, the easier it becomes to connect with almost anyone.

tl;dr Curiosity makes you more creative, a better storyteller, and a better conversationalist. The more genuinely interested you become in the world, the easier it becomes to connect with the people living in it.

Now I'm curious 🤓

What's the best conversation you've ever started completely by accident?

Or maybe you have your own trick for breaking the ice at conferences?

Hit reply and tell me: I genuinely read every message, and many of your stories end up inspiring future Friendworking principles 😉

💡 What influenced me this week 💡

Thoughts of the week:

• “Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.” - Sir Tom Stoppard, The Economist’s daily quotes

• “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” - Marie Curie, The Economist’s daily quotes

Song of the week:

Book and quotes of the week:

Leadership : Six Studies in World Strategy by Henry Kissinger

“Leadership is needed to help people reach from where they are to where they have never been and, sometimes, can scarcely imagine going”

“Leaders can be magnified – or diminished – by the qualities of those around them.”

“Germany’s attitude after the Second World War needed to be the opposite of its reaction to the First. Instead of indulging in self-pitying nationalism once again, Germany should seek its future within a unifying Europe. Adenauer was proclaiming a strategy of humility.”

Tools that I use with referrals:

• Descript - for anything around podcasting and video editing

• Beehiiv - for a newsletter (that’s what you receive 😅)

• Text Blaze - to access message templates with shortcuts (like “/ty”)

• Exali - promo “FROMYURII” - indemnity insurance for independent experts in Europe

• Manus - for building complex systems and projects

Daily actions:

• tell 1 person what I’m thankful to them for

• read a self-development book/listen to a professional podcast for 15 minutes

• make a valuable post/comment on LinkedIn

• tag 10 people in my connections database

• connect with 30 interesting people on LinkedIn

Weekly actions:

• connect 2 people who I believe need to be connected

• invite 30 people to follow the Community ROI podcast.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions, please 👇

And if you’d like to have more 👋 Friendworking in your life 👇

See you next week! 👋