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Julia TalksA couple of days ago someone wanted to give me some feedback about the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce breakfast event that morning. I’m President of the Chamber, so I always want to hear what people have to say.
The main point from this guy was that he didn’t feel that there was enough time for networking at these events. In case you haven’t been to one of our breakfasts, the format is that everyone comes in at 7:45, has coffee and pastries and circulates and chats for about 30 minutes, then we sit down and have breakfast. After breakfast there’s a speaker for about 15 – 20 minutes, usually someone who is talking about their own business journey and passing on some ideas and inspiration. By 9:30, we close the meeting and some people go off to work, and some people hang on and have a bit more chat.
Mr Feedback’s problem was that he didn’t get to meet enough people. What he wanted to do was meet as many people as possible, see if they wanted to buy anything from him, and if not, then move on to the next person. This is called working the room.
My experience
For me, this is a real misconception about networking. I had been at the same breakfast that morning, and I’d spoken to Peter, Rosie, Toby, Rebecca, Rebecca’s friend, Robert and Mark.
I’d said hello to about half a dozen more people, and I’d been able to get hold of the guy that Rebecca wanted to speak to and send him over to her. For me, this is plenty enough people for one event. I want to be able to have in depth conversations with people, and to say hi (therefore reminding them of my existence) to others. I don’t know if there will be any direct business benefit to me from going to particular breakfast, but I know that I learnt some interesting things from the talk, found out something new about Robert which might be of use to one of my clients, and that I had fun. Again, that’s plenty, and well worth the twelve quid.
The risk of working the room
If you work the room, your desire to separate the wheat from the chaff means that you risk offending the people you discard. Those people are not going to want to be your friends.
Very few of us sell anything the first time we meet someone, especially if you sell services (this doubles if you sell complex service). So if someone doesn’t want to buy right now, make sure that you establish a good relationship with them, because they might want to buy later. And of course, they might not want to ever buy from you, but you want them to remember you and like you, because you want them to recommend you to their aunt’s boyfriend’s best friend, who does want to buy whatever you’re selling.
Don’t be a doggie
The other risk with working the room is that you can look needy. You’re like a doggie, sniffing each person to see who is going to give you the money. And no one is going to trust you or buy anything if you appear to be desperate.
Don’t be tempted to work the room – networking is a long term game, with big potential results. Some of the people who have done me the biggest favours in business have been people who I’ve known for years, and who are very unlikely themselves to be my clients, but I’ve got to know them and they’ve been incredibly helpful, recommending potential clients, setting up speaking opportunities (where I do meet potential clients) and media opportunities. You only need a handful of great people like this to make the difference.
At a general, open networking event it’s unlikely that you’ll meet and talk to more than a dozen people. We naturally tend to gravitate to people we already know.
If you get a list of attendees, then you can target any people that you’d particularly like to talk to and by target I don’t mean you home in on them and deliver a non-stop sales pitch which leaves them struggling to get a word in. You start a conversation, you find out about them, is there an area of mutual interest/business? Listen more than you speak.
Don’t dismiss them just because there isn’t an immediate connection. You don’t know who they know and while they may not be ready for your services yet, at some point in the future they may be or if they know, like and trust you they’re more likely to refer you on.
If you want intensive networking – a speed-networking event will enable you to talk to 30+ businesses in one go for about 1-2 minutes. Not a lot of time to understand a person and their business needs but it’s a good initial contact and allows you to have a follow-up conversation later.
Most importantly of all, you need to follow up afterwards. You’ve made the initial connection, so continue the discussion, follow-up on a point of interest or meet to have a more in-depth chat.
There’s much more to networking than getting a sale – it’s about relationship building. It’s not all about WIIFM (what’s in it for me), it’s more about how can I help. The business comes later and it’s a long-term view.
I’ve recently signed up a client I first started networking with about 4-5 years ago! However, I get regular business from networking – rarely on the first contact. I also find other people to work with through networking and I have a great network of contacts that I can refer my clients to.
Hi Julia,
I have read your articles due to the fact that what I read on LinkedIn was or seemed a bit harsh from the gentleman’s comments. I have to agree with you, there are so many that use every opportunity to sell their services when in fact they should be building bridges and setting down foundations with those who they first meet.
9 out of 10 people that you speak to will be interested in what you do within the first 10 seconds by the way the questions are directed, therefore its a natural process that leads onto other topics if the conversations heads in a different direction so be it.
What is important networking is not primarily used as a selling tool and i am afraid that some do use the group purely for this aim only, even to the extent that requests to become fellow linkedIn users are somewhat abused stating they have worked together etc.
Good on you for making the comments in your article.
KR
Ian
Thanks Ian
I recently started working with someone I met through networking 8 years ago, so this shows that networking is indeed a long term game! Thanks for taking the time to comment, it’s good that you checked out what I actually said in the middle of this rather messy situation.