I’m pretty sure that in your local community you can find groups of people who like to meet and spend some time together. Some people call them meetups.

The meetups can be divided into different categories, and they can serve different purposes, like dating, professional experience exchange, meeting new people and just having good time playing poker.

My favorite place to find such meetups is Meetup.com, where you can join the group by interests and be updated for upcoming group events. You may be amazed how valuable such meetings can be…

Engage Them
If you are a starting investor or an entrepreneur, you can convert a meetup into a brainstorming session to check your ideas and even gather new ideas. I dont even mention the fact that you will meet new people and make very good connections for your business. But there is one catch. You need to become a valuable group member, so people will share with you. Dont worry if you have no any experience in the business, you can be valuable by asking questions (that sounds strange, but asking the right questions will draw attention of others, and a lot of people like to have interested “ears” to tell their story into ) Your questions also start a conversation, which will draw other people to it.

Conquer Them
I would like to share with you some tips how to merge into an existing group and get the most value from it.

• Be transparent, and show your appreciation for other’s knowledge by asking topic(or controversial) questions and listening (I mean listening) to what they have to share. That’s the best way to find gems of knowledge in a very friendly and relax manner. Engage them into a dialog, let them talk and unveil the deadliest secrets of the trade. Start with broad questions and then narrow the subject.
• Have a goal of the conversation in your mind and silently remind yourself of that goal. It’s very easy to go away from the main subject, and finish the conversation by the discussion of someone’s dog troubles
• Discussing solutions for problems can be a valuable subjects, but different people have different opinions, thus you may end up in an argument and waste your time… Consider discussing new options for innovations and dont evaluate people’s suggestions, just work on finding nuggets of information that you can use to improve your own ideas and business. That way you can reach new breakthroughs instead of wasting your time in “analysis paralysis”.

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