You've just arrived at a welcome reception for your industry's national conference. You've assessed the room and introduced yourself to another attendee. But you soon realize this person is not the type of role with which you need to network and you have nothing in common with this person. How do you gracefully transition to another person and connect with the people you do need to meet?

In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we help you become a better networker with these tips shared by writer Aja Frost. In her recent blog, Frost references machine learning researcher Ferenc Huszár on how to network a room and identify the "super connectors"—those individuals who can get you connected to the right decision makers. After all, in the time it takes to discover that your goals or needs don't line up with the other person, you could have met a different attendee who could benefit from your product or knows someone who can.

Huszár suggests these tips for your next reception or mixer:

  1. Pick a random person in the crowd

  2. Ask the person if he or she knows anyone at the event. When the person points out someone else, go talk to that person.

His two-step technique is based on the Friendship Paradox, a phenomenon in which a few members of a social network tend to have dramatically more connections than anyone else.

"Probability works in your favor," Huszár explains. "This randomly picked individual (the person the first one points to) is . . . quite likely to be a highly connected individual."

Let's say you walk over to the second person and introduce yourself—and it becomes clear they're not the right person to be talking to, either.

Ask them, "Besides (name of first person), do you know anyone else here?" The person they reference is probably another super-connector.

It's also a good idea to check out the other attendees before an event. This way, you can identify some individuals ahead of time and develop a few key talking points.

Some conferences have event apps that allow you to view the attendees and even send messages ahead of time. Use the event app to save the person's name, picture, general information and the reason you want to talk to them. Then, when you see the person, you can quickly pull up these notes on your phone and give them a review while you walk over to say hello.

Try these strategies at your next event to connect with those who can mutually benefit from connecting with you.

Source: Aja Frost is a staff writer for the HubSpot Sales Blog. She is also a freelance writer specializing in business, tech, career advice and productivity.