Rae Stonehouse, author of Power Networking for Shy People: Tips & Techniques for Moving from Shy to Sly! Offers proven sage advice on how to maximize your business networking effectiveness. In Close Encounters of the Networking Kind Rae explores the subject of how close you should stand to another person when conversing in a 1 to 1 business networking session.

1. Power Networking Tips & Techniques: Close Encounters of the Networking Kind
Have you ever wondered how close to stand to another
person when conversing in a 1 to 1 at a business
networking session? Okay, maybe I do have too much
spare time as they say but I am sure that this is a question
that many people have asked.
While I don’t have a definitive answer, I do have some
thoughts on the matter. Many factors including gender,
culture, trust, past experiences and self-confidence come
into play.
Looking at it from a self-defence, self-preservation perspective, it is helpful to think of each of us having
an invisible circle or a safety zone around us. As a preservation measure we tend to keep strangers
outside of our safety zone and only let people we trust or are comfortable with into our comfort zone.
In North America our personal safety zone tends to be about three feet in diameter around us. The
same distance as our outstretched arm and fist or our outstretched leg if we were intending to strike or
kick someone in self-defence. Our comfort zone i.e. the area where we will let those that we trust into
tends to be about 18 to 30 inches in diameter.
In a business networking session I’m sure that we don’t attend with the idea that we are going to have
to physically defend ourselves. I believe that this is a situation that can cause stress in some people in
networking situations. To have an effective discussion with someone who you are meeting for the first
time as in a business networking session often means that you are permitting a stranger to enter your
comfort zone. Crowded, noisy rooms tend to necessitate drawing in closer to the other person just to
be able to hear them well.
While it is socially acceptable for women to hold or touch each other while in conversation, even in a
first meeting encounter, the same cannot be said about two men conversing.
You may not even be aware that you have a comfort zone until someone invades it. That feeling of
anxiousness, uneasiness may be your subconscious calling to your attention that something isn’t right.
Perhaps that is the time to take a step backwards to continue your conversation.
If you are confident in your networking conversations, allowing others into your comfort zone and
paying close attention to the conversation by actively participating in it can go a long way in building
your reputation as an effective networker and somebody worth meeting and getting to know.
Many networkers have challenges of inserting themselves into groups that have already formed and are
actively discussing a topic. A group that the members are standing close enough to converse with each
other, yet not within each other’s comfort zones, would likely be a group that would be open to having

2. someone else join them. On the other hand, two people standing very close together, perhaps a little
ways away from the rest of the group would seem to be having an intimate conversation and would not
likely be open to someone joining them. If they were to separate from each other that could indicate
that the private or intimate stage of their conversation has concluded and they were now open to be
joined by others.
You can learn a lot be observing others. In your next networking session observe how people are
standing. Are they close together or far apart? Does an individual networker use the same technique
with everyone they meet or do they vary their closeness in conversation. Try out some different
distances to your conversational partner and see how it feels to you.
Top photo credit: Jodi Womack via photopin cc
Rae Stonehouse is the author of Power Networking For Shy People: Tips &
Techniques to Move from Shy to Sly! Visit us
at http://www.powernetworkingforshypeople.com Join our discussion on
Facebook & LinkedIn. Just search for Power Networking for Shy People.