Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Why networking can be a waste of time

I presented to a group recently on how to get results from networking. The first part of the session was all about the things to consider first. These first steps are discussed in a recent NRG podcast, why are you networking and are you prepared?.

During the session one person said that he attended at least 3 networking meetings a week, but was struggling to generate any results. In fact, one of the other attendees shared that this person had developed a reputation for himself as someone who never followed up!

We dug a little deeper and he said he had never asked himself why he was networking. That meant he had never identified where he should network and what he was actually networking for. He simply thought it was something he ought to do and so he attended everything he could. Where possible he avoided any commitment to joining and his idea of a good event was one where all the people were new. This meant he was spending all his spare time on attending meetings and no time on following up and building profitable business relationships. He was wasting a lot of time.

Once he worked out why he was networking he worked out where to concentrate his efforts. He now invests his time productively in the groups that are right for him and his business and he is saving himself a lot of time and effort too.

Good Networking!
Dave Clarke
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