How to not be weird
Hello WSO,
To be frank, I am a pretty weird guy, I was homeschooled and did not have a lot of social interactions during middle school or high school. For a while, I was actually very scared to talk to new people. Starting college helped me a lot with socializing, but my social skills are still absolutely terrible. I cannot seem to have a natural conversation with bankers during networking calls and there are often long, awkward pauses that I do not know how to handle. I seriously cringe during those moments. Currently, I am trying to improve my social skills through practice, and just taking as many calls as I can to get better at socializing and conversating. What other ways can I improve my social skills so I can succeed in forming new connections and translating those connections into referrals down the line?
Force yourself to do more networking calls I guess. Eventually you will get better. If you want to be cynical than schedule like 50 calls with people in jobs you give zero shits and let them deal with the cringe.