Networking at a Party You Were Not Invited To

Larry Chiang pretends to crash parties he hosts. He got his first job out of engineering school by crashing interview rooms at the Illini Union. Crashing is a critical skill-set that is not taught at Harvard, Stanford or Duke Fuqua’s School of Business.

By Larry Chiang

Before I waltzed into events with my BusinessWeek press pass, I had to crash or sneak my way in. Networking at a party you were not invited to takes a massively different skill set from working a room you ARE invited into.

Here are eight unpublished tips to network at a party you were not invited to…

-1- The Karma of a Crasher

After you are in, do not plus one non-value added guests. I ask myself, “Who do I know that the host/sponsor/producer of the party would want to meet?”. My plus ones have been value added here, here and here.

-2- Don’t Eat or Drink.

Remember, my goal is I want to migrate myself from crasher to VIP guest. There will be time to eat and drink later. If you’re hustling an event, I don’t occupy my hands (or more importantly, my mouth) with food or drink.

-3- Don’t Weigh Down the Host or the One That Plus Oned You.

After Captain Kirk crashed his way onto the Starship Enterprise, he added value by joining the high-risk landing crew team. He was not a burden to Dr McCoy who initially smuggled Kirk aboard.

-4- Add Value as a Crasher.

Party humor is always welcome.

In Wedding Crashers, before they took home hot ass, they added value by doing balloon animals, telling funny groom stories or mingling with the older relatives.

-5- Hide if you Need PDA Time

PDA here stands for personal digital assistant, not public display of affection.

It is perfectly understandable to take 5-20 minutes to break from a party. Take this break away from clear sightlines. I hide in a corner and or off in a side room. Try to never be on the fringe of the room with the blue-ish blackberry light illuminating your face.

-6- Thank the Host.

It is counter-intuitive to approach the host as an uninvited guest. I do it so often I have a speech ready.

“Hi I’m Larry Chiang. I’m from here. I wasn’t invited but wondered if its ok to stay?”

It begs the question, “what do you do”

I then answer, “What do I do for money or for the community”

They’ll say “either”

And I say, for money I help college students with their FICO and for the entrepreneur community I write about “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” at my blog at BusinessWeek

My two minutes are up… the host thinks I’m a funny pompous ass, psuedo celeb that scammed his way into a party. Later he’ll hear that a VIP guest came because of me and wallah; I’m now VIP too.

-7- Don’t Crash with Your GSB Attitude

GSB stands for Graduate School of Business at University of Chicago. Stanford University later hijacked those initials.

Getting into the best b-school in America doesn’t equate with carte blanche entrance into all other organization, events and parties. On the other hand, it does not mean not crashing or trying to crash.

-8- Be Ok With Failing

“What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” has a pivotal chapter about hardship and triumphing over it. Yes, Chapter 11 is about failing. Be OK with trying to get into an event and getting held up at the door.

For example, two years ago I was trying to crash Om Malik’s found|Read launch event. I was rejected twice at the door. The third time I man-charmed Om Malik and he walked me into the party and introduced me around. He later introduced me to Carleen Hawn, an editor, who later asked me to write at GigaOm.

Failing at the door actually help me because it helped me get in front of the host.

This post was written in about 30 minutes on a Sidekick III. email larry @larrychiang dot com if you see mistakes.

Larry Chiang champions the two-way keynote by sprinkling in new-school social media with old school lecturing. Catch him still wearing a tie in his cubicle on University Avenue.

He has testified before Congress and the World Bank and is horrified that the #1 reason college students drop out of school is because of credit card debt.