The single worst thing you can do when you meet a powerful and influential person for the first time is ASK for something. Yet I see people do it all the time. It absolutely drives me crazy. It's one of the reasons I wrote this article. There is a protocol that you should follow when you network with society's elite. Here I'm going to share some of those unwritten rules with you. Follow them and you won't make a complete fool of yourself the next time you wine and dine with the rich and famous.
1. Don't Use Your 'Networking Organization' Elevator Speech.
You know the type of networking organizations I'm talking about right? The ones that meet weekly and have a fixed elevator speech: this is who I am, this is what I do and this is my ideal client. Those don't work with powerful leaders. You need to be more flexible, authentic and organic in how you introduce yourself, not just press play on your internal tape recorder.
