Posted on Friday, 21st March 2008 by CopywritingCat
In her book, Excuse Me: Your Life Is Waiting, the late Lynn Grabhorn contrasted purposeful activity with what she calls “heigh-ho silvering:” action for its own sake, feeling like, “I should be doing something…anything.”
Some networking feels just like heigh-ho silvering.
“I meet people who go to lots of networking lunches,” one experienced mentor told me. “They feel like they’re doing something because they show up and meet people. But they never stop to ask, ‘How is this helping my business?’”
In my own case, I can spend $40-$50 for a networking lunch or dinner. The time will be pleasant. I’ll use up 2-3 hours in the middle of the day. Of course I also spend money on transportation, manicures, dog-sitters, dry cleaning and more.
So I’ll spend $750-$800 conservatively, just for one meeting a month, where I might meet half a dozen people at each meeting.
Or I can spend the same amount of money running ads in an ezine that reaches 15,000 people each issue. Last time I did that, I got dozens of e-zine subscribers and even a client or two.
That’s because my business specialty doesn’t lend itself to these kinds of meetings. If I can speak to a group that’s interested in my topic, my time will be well-spent. But 2-minute one-breath introduction, at a table of people who are mostly outside my target market, is not a good use of my time.
Of course, networking may serve other purposes. When I was new to Seattle, I spent a year going to Toastmasters near me. To be honest, I don’t think the Toastmasters approach does much for my kind of speaking, although I did stretch my skills by winning a humorous speaking contest. For me, the benefit was getting out every week at lunch time, creating a nice break in the day.
Bottom Line: It’s easy to tell ourselves, “If I’m networking, I must be doing something to help my business.” Better to ask the famous Alan Lakein question (from the classic book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life): “What is the best use of my time right now?”
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Tags: networking, Professional Services Marketing, time management
Posted in Professional Services Marketing, networking
