In my opinion, when it comes to winning business, ‘chamber of commerce style’ networking events offer extremely poor value. Small businesses lose a fortune each year attending these networking events – when they could be getting far better results, for a fraction of the time and money they wasted on networking!
Business owners and salespeople regularly tell me that they get little (if anything) tangible from these dead-end events; often believing they are at fault because they are doing something wrong. Many then waste even more time learning ‘how to work the room’ – then finally realise, after being screwed out of their money, that it’s the actual networking events that are the problem – NOT them!
I have run a successful marketing business for over 14 years and have clients all over the world. In my experience, I can think of no business gathering where you are LESS likely to make a sale or win some business than a typical ‘chamber of commerce style’ networking event.
Why?
- Firstly, very few people attend networking events to buy! Just like you, EVERYONE in that room is there to SELL.
. - Secondly, because networking events are regarded as a sales and marketing activity, companies send their SALESPEOPLE along and not their BUYERS! This is why all those dreadful “how to work a room” books and seminars are sold exclusively to salespeople and delivered by sales trainers.
In other words, you will be speaking to salespeople and not buyers at these events; people with not only no interest in buying from you BUT with no authority to buy from you either!
If you enjoy meeting people and want to find new potential suppliers, a traditional networking event’s worth considering. However, as a marketing activity I genuinely believe there are man, many better alternatives.
[...] A couple of the more popular business networks are http://www.ecademy.com and http://www.linkedin.com. In either case, you are likely to see FAR BETTER results than through wasting your time at traditional ‘networking events’ (Click here to see why traditionasl networking is a waste of your time!) [...]
Hi Jim
Your words on traditional networking were very interesting to me.
I’m 3 months into my new post at a Web design and development company. Traditional Networking events were never part of my marketing mix before, but I’ve been to numerous networking events over the past 3 months, and I mostly agree with you about them being a waste of time.
I’ve so far avoided the big, pushy networking groups- you know who I mean! as the way people approach me about joining them puts me off. Pushy is not my business approach, or my company’s, so why choose that route?
I’ve found the local Chamber of Commerce events a little more successful, so I am keeping those, at least for the moment – local business is important to us and we do a lot of work with start-ups and SME’s.
I’ve also enjoyed one event that was an industry event, and think that ties in with your Joint Venture idea – we may see some partnerships arising from that, in due course.
3 months is a little early to ditch them all, but I have already backed out of some, and I’m bearing your words in mind, and will chop out any others that don’t provide value.
Thanks for sharing your ideas, Jim!