5 Tips to Turn Your Conference Talk into a Networking Opportunity

Preparing to stand on a stage to talk about yourself, your work, and the accomplishments you’re proud of is one of the most jarring professional experiences. The generally intimidating nature of public speaking aside, there’s usually a niggling fear that what you’re going to say won’t resonate; that the crowd’ll have heard it all before, or even if they haven’t, someone else could tell that story better.

Thankfully, that’s usually just inner demons playing tricks on us, but with all that running through our minds before we give talks at events, it can be hard to focus on anything else, even something as simple as meeting new people and connecting with other attendees afterwards.

Writing for Fast Company, Christine Clapp shares five tips to help make the process of networking after your talk a bit easier. From helping the audience to remember what you look like so they can find you later, to sticking around after you’ve given your talk (no matter how tired you are!), these seemingly simple tasks become very valuable when you’re grappling with nerves, stress, and PowerPoint.